


You Can Change Right Next To Me

by notalone91



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dirty Talk, Fantasizing, First Dates, Good Parent Frank Kaspbrak, Good Parents Maggie & Wentworth Tozier, Hospitals, M/M, Maggie Tozier is a Gem and I Will Not Be Taking Criticism, Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, Mutual Masturbation, Non-Explicit Sex, Soft Richie Tozier, Sonia Kaspbrak is her own warning, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Soul Bond, Teen Romance, past Frank Kaspbrak/Wentworth Tozier... sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:34:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 52,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalone91/pseuds/notalone91
Summary: Most people choose their bonds and initiate them through an elaborate ceremony.  Sometimes, the universe gets impatient.  Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak must have really pissed off the universe with their stupidity.  Now, the boys are left to pick up the pieces.[The boys are 17 here.  I"m trying to keep it maxed out at R.  When things get too heated, there will be the basic English language equivalent of an Iris Out or like... hazy cut aways to after.  Basically, if you're familiar with like... an American Pie/Superbad/CW type of situation, it's gonna be there.]
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Frank Kaspbrak & Wentworth Tozier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 65





	1. cutting me open and healing me fine

**Author's Note:**

> Some 15 years ago, I read a Drarry fanfiction that changed a lot of how I felt about relationships in fiction. Recently, I found it again after being convinced it was lost to the annals of the internet. If you'd like to experience it, check out Bond by AnnaFugazzi. You'll notice some elements from this story are going to be borrowed from that, but obviously not to the full extent. This is not the wizarding world, this is not enemies to lovers, this is still very much Reddie. Just, with that bond element that has intrigued me for so long.

The Universe works on balance. Yin and yang, as it were. It's even a fundamental law of physics: Every action has an equal, opposite reaction. As such, there are so many things at play in every aspect of one's life. Especially love. 

Not much is known about the ties that bind. Ancient scholars spoke of 7 distinct types of love. Each is important and strong and unique. Moreover, sometimes a bond takes shape unexpectedly. It can, certainly, knock you out.

When Eddie Kaspbrak came to, the first thing his brain managed to onto was how bright it was. Then, the whirring of machines. Then, the beeping of a heart monitor. After that, it was all just groggy pain addled by the pinch every time he tried to move his arm. An I.V. So, I am in a hospital, he concluded. Then, he heard his mother's whining from the hall. Fuck, he winced. What does she think is wrong now?! 

Even if she'd been in Bangor with his aunts where she was supposed to be, he's fairly certain he could have heard her anyway. "Eddie will be staying with me. He's too young for-"

There was another voice. A male one. "You know that's not how it works. What's done is done," he heard a voice he thought might be someone he knew, but wasn’t one of his parents say. "He has to-"

"No! I am his mother!" She snaps. "He's not even 17 yet. He's just a baby!" It sounded like game over for whatever decisions were being made for him just outside his reach. If he could just get the ringing in his ears to stop.

"Look, I'm not happy about this, either, believe me," scoffed a usually sweet and even third voice that confirmed the identity of the second. It was definitely Maggie and Went Tozier out there with his mom. "But until we can-"

"You're not happy?! You?!" His mother shrieked. He closed his eyes, wishing desperately for his head to stop swimming. "My Eddie would be a dream son-in-law for any-" 

Son-in-law? Eddie's mind whirled and spun. He couldn’t seem to settle on anything past the fact that he needed to see Richie. He was not entirely sure of what was going on, but he knew- somewhere deep inside- he knew that Richie would fix it. At the very, very least, Richie would help him make sense of it.

He would never have expected people to talk back to his mother. He would never do it, that's for sure. When he heard Maggie shoot back with, "Eddie is! You are not," his whole body warmed. "Besides, Richie-"

He could almost feel his mother's spitfire rage at the mention of his… friend. "Don't mention that-"

"Richie is hardly seventeen himself!" Mrs. Tozier speaking over her was not entirely unexpected. It was no secret that the women didn't get along. The difference was that his mother didn't get along with anyone, whereas he was fairly certain his mother was the only person he's ever heard either of the Toziers speak an unkind word of. "We don't know what either of them think-"

"Oh, I know what your filthy little son thinks!" His mother hissed. "He thinks this is an easy way to get my precious baby into bed with him!"

Eddie shifted himself to the edge of the bed and reached for the IV pole. He felt weaker and weaker by the second. Until, "Sonia, that is enough!"

His attention spiked through the fog. His father? Frank Kaspbrak wasn't supposed to be home until Tuesday. He struggled with his memory. The last thing he could remember was being in the clubhouse with Richie. That was Saturday around noon. He looked around the room, knowing the date had to be written somewhere. At the foot of the bed was a whiteboard. Monday morning. Okay. That was bad. Not as bad as if it were after Tuesday, but still. Days unaccounted for couldn’t be promising.

He could hear the awkward stillness that had fallen over the conversation. His father was well-liked and he managed to, somehow, temper his mother. "Frank, I-" 

"Enough," he said quietly, so much so that Eddie had almost missed it. "Excuse us for a moment," he said, shuffling his wife into the room as though a curtain would protect unwilling participants from Sonia's rage. "Bonds are delicate. The younger they are, the more intense it is and the longer its half-life is," he said. "Besides, the boys have always been close. Who knows what type-"

Words were getting scrambled for Eddie. He heard his mother's appalled, "You're okay with this?" and closed his eyes. 

"Now, I didn’t say that," Frank said calmly, "but-"

"What if he meets some nice, beautiful girl and she's his soulmate and he can't be with her because he's bound to that Tozier wretch?" she yelped. Eddie couldn’t make out her words, but he did hear the distinct click of Maggie's kitten heels and a grumble that had to have been from Went.

Clearer, he heard his father. "Then, that will be dealt with if it happens." 

Feeling his senses dive back under, he gripped the cool steel of the pole with white knuckle intensity. "When!" He tried to ignore his mother's intensity.

"If," his father insisted again.

There was something loaded in that if. Whatever that if was indicating, his father didn't seem sold on it. He was, however growing weary of listening to their inane arguing. He needed… something. He wasn't sure what, but he got up and, leaning heavily on the pole of the IV, he crept toward the door. 

"When it happens! What if-" his mother, who may as well have been Charlie Brown's teacher, whelped.

Finally reaching the divider curtain after an eternity, he reached for it and drew it back. "Dad?" he managed, nearly collapsing into his father's arms but catching himself again on the pole. His whole body felt weak. Still, something intrinsic within him kept insisting that he get to Richie until it became a raging headache, each rumbling wave screaming Richie.

Scrambling frantically, his mother retrieved the wheelchair from the hall, bringing the Toziers in with them as though on a breeze. "Eddie-bear!" She ushered him into the chair, despite his protest. "Sweetheart, don't worry."

Frank knelt beside his son and nodded at Richie’s father to go get a nurse. "What do you remember, kiddo?" he asked, seeming to reach for him, then retract his hand. 

That was the question, wasn't it? "Richie and I were in the clubhouse," he said, screwing his eyes shut. "It started to thunderstorm." It was almost like he could still hear the rain. Everything was white noise. He just wanted it to stop. "We were supposed to meet up with Bill and Stan." He tried desperately to remember more. He remembered… no. No, that couldn’t have been right. He decided not to chance it. If he was wrong, if he was misremembering… No. He needed to talk to Richie first. "Then, nothing. Did we get struck by lightning?"

"Something like that," his mother said dismissively.

He looked up at Maggie’s worried, clearly exhausted, and tear-stained face and panicked. "Is Richie-"

His father nodded, a knowing yet tentative smile flashing across his face. "He's here, it's just-" He looked up between the two women and shrugged. Sonia scoffed, disgusted by the whole thing, and turned away. 

Maggie, on the other hand, wasn’t willing to let Eddie’s mind wander. "He hasn't woken up yet, Sweetheart," she said, barely audible above the litany of ambient buzzing in Eddie’s head. 

"Oh," was all the response he could muster, choking down the urge to be sick. What happened? He looked at his dad, hoping he would just know what Eddie wanted. That didn't work. Weakly, he managed to form the question, "Can I see him?"

Mr. Tozier came back in after having flagged down a nurse and wrapped his arm around his wife. "Absolutely," they answered in tandem. 

At the same time, Mrs. Kaspbrak levied her outrage. "Absolutely not."

Frank winked at his son and stood up. "I think you’re outnumbered, Sonia." He walked to the back of the wheelchair and situated the IV pole so that Eddie could hold on to it.

Every inch they rolled across the hall, Eddie felt himself settle. The buzzing and beeping and clicking eased. His heart rate seemed to slow. By the time the chair was parked by Richie’s bedside, his lightheadedness had quelled. The only thing being closer to Richie didn't help was the nausea. That, he understood. The thought of Richie being sick or hurt… that was enough to be his undoing.

His hand reached out and grasped Richie's. His breath hitched and suddenly… he relaxed. Richie's heart rate calmed and he seemed, for the first time in days, to be sleeping peacefully. Just like that. 

The adults in the room exchanged wordless glances after carefully watching Richie's vitals all stabilize. They were right. They had to be. Maggie smiled, somewhat relieved. The doctor had said, if his suspicions were right, that Eddie and Richie would be able to touch one another, even if the touch of their own parents seemed to burn them and spike their blood pressure dangerously. In fact, he surmised, that the closer the boys were, the better off they'd be. He had been spot on.

Frank lingered close to his son, actively separating his wife from the boys. "Were you and Richie…" Sonia coughed pointedly. "Well, it doesn't do anyone any good to avoid it," he insisted, then leaned up against the wall. "What exactly were you and Richie doing when the lightning started?"

Eddie blanched, tightening his grip on Richie’s hand instinctively. "We were-"

He stopped and looked up, suddenly feeling like more of a little kid than he had in a very long time. Glancing from face to face, he couldn't help but remember the fear in Richie’s eyes when he suggested that he might be ready to mention his sexuality to his father, just to test the waters. He swore he wouldn't bring Richie into it. He would never, ever have rushed him. But one look at him almost broke his heart. Tears sprung from his eyes, hot and angry. He rested his head in his folded arms and sobbed.

Wanting nothing more than to comfort his son, Frank moved to Richie’s opposite side. "No one will be mad," he said gently, ignoring Sonia's indignant huff. Eddie simply sobbed harder in response. He looked up at the Toziers. He knew, for Richie's sake, they had to get answers. More than that, he knew his son. His wife had instilled in their son a deeply seeded fear of doctors and hospitals. If anyone in a white coat came in, Eddie would clam up and they'd be out of luck. The only thing that might make it easier would be his wife's absence, but the chances of that were about as high as Richie breaking into a spontaneous tap number. He sighed, then shrugged. Better for everyone to build up to it, he supposed. "Were you sitting very close to each other?" Eddie shrugged and tugged Richie’s hand closer. "More?" He asked, and got a nod. Frank looked across the room at Maggie and nodded. They were getting somewhere. "Holding hands? Kissing? More?" He'd suspected as much. "Clothes on?"

Eddie looked up, eyes wide in shock. Then, he thought about it a little harder and took a deep breath. "Mostly."

"Okay," his father exhaled. Second base wasn't unheard of for teens. "Okay," he repeated, looking up at the other adults assuredly.

Eddie pursed his lips and looked down. "But then we started fighting," he said.

High emotions and heavy contact. That made sense. "Why?" he asked.

Realizing just how stupid it was going to sound, Eddie groaned. "He called me short." He looked up at his father and dared him to side with Richie on that. 

"So, you were play fighting," Maggie said instead. She moved to sit in the chair beside her son and eyed Eddie curiously. 

Withering under her too-kind gaze, Eddie balked. "No, I meant it at first…" he said. 

With a half-smile, she glanced over Eddie at her husband. "And then you didn't anymore." She knew the feeling. Her husband and her son both tended to take things too far sometimes. If the adults were indeed right, Eddie was in for a long road of that. 

Unaware of her empathy, Eddie’s walls began to form. "No, I guess not. But he kept on making fun of me so I told him to shut up."

She raised her eyebrow. "And did he?" Maggie knew her son far too well for that. 

Eddie was silent for a moment. He thought back to the last moments he could remember. He grumbled absently about not meeting up with him like this again if he's going to keep being an asshole. Richie laughed at him and he couldn't help but smile back as he walked toward him. He whipped his shirt around Eddie’s back and pulled him closer. "You like this too much to stop," he teased.

"I do not," he replied lamely. Richie raised an eyebrow, much the same way his mother had done hearing Eddie’s side of the story. "Oh, shut up," he laughed, giving him a light shove.

"Make me."

Eddie couldn’t help himself. He nearly mauled Richie. The taller boy's hands gravitated downward and he lifted him off the ground, walking himself back toward the ratty old hammock that had hung from the supports through several summers. He eased them down onto the netting cautiously, Eddie clamped hungrily on his lower lip. 

The thunder roared. The light through the hatch glowed bright blue. And Eddie couldn’t remember anything else.

The boy looked at his friend's mother feeling terribly useless. "Sort of," he offered. He didn’t know what to say. Every fiber of his being cried out. "Is he-" he stopped. He didn't know what to ask. Why wasn't he waking up? "Did I hurt him?" Eddie finally asked, "Did I do this?" Panic rose in his chest and he inched closer to Richie. "I'm sorry. I'm so-"

Maggie’s heart broke for the boy. She looked up at Sona imploringly. She knew that she didn't want to tell Eddie until they were certain. That was her prerogative as his mother. But this- the needless guilt and pain? She wouldn't stand for it. "No! No, Eddie, it's just-"

Sensing the direction of the conversation, Sonia lunged for the back of Eddie’s wheelchair, she hissed. "We're leaving. This is not happening."

"Sonia, you can't," Went insisted trying to step between her and the door. He remembered all too well the pain both boys might be in for if they were right. 

Still, she insisted. "Let's go, Eddie! Time to go." She placed a hand on her son’s shoulder and he recoiled, searing pain coursing through his body. As if on cue, the beeping of Richie’s heart monitor began to speed up. 

"Let's rethink this," Frank said, taking his wife's hand from their son. Nevertheless, she turned him around and out the door toward his room. "You know as well as I do that's not going to work out well for either of them," he called after her.

Steadily, Richie’s vitals climbed off the charts setting off all sorts of alarm bells. "What's happening?" Eddie asked over his shoulder, panicking. His own breathing raced out of control. His vision blurred. He dug his heels in, trying to stop his mother.

"He can feel you leaving," Maggie called, trying to clue Eddie in. She needed him to know that it would be okay; that they figured it out.

"Sonia, stop!" Frank and Went both called after her. 

Fight or flight reflex kicking in, Eddie tried, himself. "Mom, no!" When she didn't stop, he reached down and wrenched the brake into position, and grabbed his IV, moving toward Richie’s room urgently. "Hey, it's okay, Richie," he reached into the bed and rubbed his hand gently over his leg. "I'm here," he repeated. When he finally managed to feel convinced that Richie was settled, he looked up between Went and Frank angrily. "What aren't you telling me?" He asked.

The men shared a charged look. Frank sighed and folded his arms, leaning back against the wall, then stared squarely at the chipped corner of a tile between his feet. He tried not to let his emotions play out on his face, but he couldn't believe that this was happening. 

Went moved to Richie's bed and lowered the protective railing, daring Sonia to disallow it. He gestured for Eddie to hop in as Richie's levels all regulated. If he didn't know better, it appeared as though he seemed to move to Eddie instinctively. He adjusted the plastic guard back and looked at Frank, who nodded. Swallowing thickly, he gripped the handrail and did his best to relax his face, knowing that his thoughts and emotions would only terrify the poor boy. He took a deep breath and focused. Tell him. "It looks like you and Richie might be bound to one another."


	2. I Held On Tightly As You Held On To Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie comes to grips with and learns more about the bond while waiting for Richie to wake up.

If you had asked most of the adults involved, Eddie Kaspbrak handled the realization of his bonding with poise and grace most people with unintentional bonds twice his age struggle with. He could only vaguely recall the chapter on it in his Health And Human Development classes earlier in his school career. Derry Public School education being what it was, his teacher had skipped it. He had insisted that that wasn’t how it happened and that there hadn't been a documented case of it in decades. He also firmly instilled upon them that no bonds happened until adulthood, willing or unwilling, so they wouldn't have to worry about it.

See, the problem was that, of course, seated behind him, so close Eddie could hear his every comment, feel every antsy drum of his fingers or jiggle of his leg, was Richie Tozier. They were the best of friends, along with Bill Denbrough and Stan Uris. There had been no shortage of raunchy comments about handcuffs and gags that day. Even after the lesson was over, the descriptive travelogue spilled out into the hallway. 

Eddie was only half listening. He knew that if he listened, Richie would, as he so often did, drag him in. And a discussion like this was not something he wanted to have. With Richie. At school. Ever. 

But, in hindsight, he wished he'd pressed the issue with the teacher because he would have been able to at least had some input. If there was one thing he hated above all else, he hated being unable to participate in conversations about his life. Unfortunately, this time he had nothing. 

Worse, Richie still hadn't woken up. He needed to see his big goofy smile so he could smack it the fuck off of him for distracting him all that time ago. 

His hospital bed had been rolled into Richie’s room, which didn't please his mother. In fact, she was so pissed, she had been told by the doctor and her husband to leave and not come back until she could keep her emotions in check. It would be a cold day in hell before that happened, Eddie thought. Much to his relief, she had done so, albeit begrudgingly. What she had forgotten was that the hospital’s security was tight. If someone was on a restricted visitation list, they were not getting in. So, he sat quietly, nodding along as Dr. Boniface debriefed him on his and Richie’s current predicament.

"Normally, I'd wait until both parties were awake to go over this information," the man, just a touch older than his father, said, taking off his eyeglasses and laughing humorlessly. "Since Mr. Tozier seems to be taking his sweet time gracing us with his conscious presence, we'll start going over the basics with you." He folded his hands on his lap and looked at Eddie, hoping not to startle him. 

Eddie didn't notice, though. He couldn't take his eyes off Richie. His fingers twitched, seeming to search for Richie’s, even though they were feet apart and in separate beds. 

The doctor smiled. "What do you know about bonding? In general," he asked. 

"It happens when two people are fated to be in each other's lives forever. Usually romantic soulmates, sometimes not. Almost always, though," Eddie answered slowly, hesitating, "almost always, it's willing. There hasn't been an unintentional bond in Derry in ages."

Frank shook his head. “That's not strictly true,” he said, looking over at the Toziers hesitantly.

“That's not what we learned in school,” Eddie argued. Richie’s breath, in and out, proved a calming point for him. 

The doctor let out a flat laugh. “That's not surprising. It's not all that uncommon, though,” he shrugged. Leaning back into his chair, he began to flip through the papers on his lap. “Usually, people don't claim their bonds were unintentional if they end up happy.”

That seemed reasonable enough. If you get your happy ending, he supposed, what difference does it make if the opening chapter wasn’t what you wanted. Or if your prince charming was a serious pain in the ass. “Oh,” he answered thoughtfully, just to fill the silence. “Can they be broken?” he asked, hoping that the fear in his voice didn’t relay his concern.

Frowning, Dr. Boniface tapped lightly on the back of his clipboard. “Not exactly. They lose intensity as you grow into it, but it's more complicated than just that.” He adjusted his glasses quickly, then crossed his legs, settling back into the chair. He analyzed the boy’s body language carefully, for a moment, then smiled. “It's possible that, at that point, you can separate but I've never encountered a complete break.”

“And you can't bond with more than one person,” Eddie remembered aloud.

Frank let out a quiet sniff, entirely unnoticed by his son, and shrugged off Went’s gently assuring hand. The doctor didn’t even acknowledge the interaction. “Again, not exactly. People have done it,” he answered simply. 

“But-”

“It's rare. Very,” he reiterated, glancing at the parents before turning his attention back to Eddie. “But, let’s say the bond you and Richie have isn't of a romantic nature, you two could still form romantic bonds with other people eventually.”

The peanut gallery grew quiet. Went clenched and unclenched his jaw, glancing at the doctor, frustrated that he would even suggest it. That wasn’t a fair idea to plant. Maggie rubbed the back of her husband’s neck as he hung his head sadly. He knew someone was staring at him, but he couldn’t bear to look up and see the sharply injured eyes.

“Oh,” Eddie said quietly, a little defeated. He hadn’t really heard much, but he knew that wasn’t the answer he wanted. “I know that there's more I wanted to ask…” he said, trailing off as Richie’s fingers grasped at the sheets. 

Nodding as he marked quickly on his papers, the doctor asked. “Are you having trouble keeping track of your thoughts?”

“Yeah, it's like TV static,” Eddie answered. The man’s voice seemed distant. But he couldn’t worry about that when he couldn’t remember if anyone had seen Richie’s glasses since they’d been in here. When he woke up, he was going to need those-

“Get in bed with Richie,” Went suggested.

“What?” he asked, finally looking away from Richie, sharply startled. He faced Mr. Tozier in stunned silence. 

“It was the only thing that helped me... in the early days,” he said with a shrug. He looked at the other adults in the room. He slid his hand into his wife’s, still resting on his shoulder, and held it out demonstratively. “Touching. You’re too far away from one another.”

To say that Eddie was skeptical would have been an understatement. “I don't-”

“Trust me,” Went insisted with a tired smile. The doctor nodded in agreement.

Eddie glanced uncomfortably between the adults in the room. “No. I don’t want to-” The doctor opened his mouth to interject, but Eddie interrupted him. “Not if he can't agree. I don't want to take advantage.”

Surprised at his son’s insistence, Frank rocked back into his chair and watched his son. “You were okay with it-”

He should have known that that would come up. Should have, if he had really remembered it happening. Everything was such a blur. “Dad, it's different,” he said, clenching his eyes shut and shaking his head. “I couldn't concentrate and he was getting worse and…”

Dr. Boniface shrugged, then chose to interrupt Eddie’s rambling with some information of his own. “It's not unlikely that contact would speed up Richie’s recovery.” When Eddie seemed to be grasping for an argument, he simply raised a hand, silently asking for Eddie to bear with him on this. “Okay, one of the really cool things about bonds, why I specialize in them, is that you gain kind of a sixth sense. You can tell what your partner needs.” Eddie swallowed and looked over at Richie out of the corner of his eye. “When your mother was wheeling you out and Richie’s heart rate started racing, how did you know that touching him would help?”

Eddie shrugged and looked down at his hands. “Mrs. Tozier said it would.” He waited in the silence of the room for a moment before looking up to see Maggie shaking her head gently, amused. 

“No, I didn't,” she clarified, then looked over at her son. “I just said he could feel you leaving.”

Baffled, Eddie’s mouth hung open. He looked over at Richie’s father and added, “But, then you-”

“Put down the railing. That’s it. You did the rest, Eddie,” he insisted. He looked over at Frank, then down at the floor. “You knew.”

“I don't know.” Allowing himself one last look in the direction of his still as yet unconscious best friend, “I don't know anything."

The doctor brought his hands together quietly and rose to his feet. “I'll tell you what, Eddie,” he said looking at the boys’ parents and nodding toward the door, gesturing for them to join him. “We'll leave you here for a little while. Let you have a moment. You’ll form your own conclusion in time. Just,” he stopped and looked at the boys, “listen to your instincts.”

Frank lingered with his son just a moment longer. He longed for every moment that he’d been too quick to leave without hugging his son or giving him a pat on the shoulder. Now, when he appeared to need it most, he could no longer accept the touch without agonizing pain. Instead, he brought his hand down on the side rail of Richie’s bed and lowered it, then did the same for Eddie’s leaving his hand on the plastic, so near to his son’s hand. “Remember kiddo, everyone here is bonded. We've been there. We can help,” he said quietly, attempting to be brave for Eddie. He moved to leave.

Before the curtain could be drawn closed, he called out. “Dad-”

For the briefest of moments, in that small, timid, voice, Frank had nearly expected to turn and see the 3-year-old little boy whose mother had panicked after a day of fun at the fair because he had a sore throat from laughing and yelling, insisting that he be observed because it had to be his tonsils. Nevermind the morbidity rates in tonsillectomy patients under 3. He shook the image of the younger Eddie from his mind and turned back to face the young man. “Yeah?” 

His large brown eyes seemed to instantly grow wet with tears. He started and abandoned sentences a few times before settling on a meek, “I'm scared.”

The father’s heart ached for his son. He rested his head against the cool wall near the room’s sink cabinet. “I know,” he sighed. The Kaspbrak men looked at one another for a few moments. A lifetime’s worth of untaught lessons hung in the silence between them. As Frank turned away and trailed the rest of the adults down the hallway, he forced himself to keep moving. 

This was something Eddie needed to pick up on his own.

Confined to the silence of their room, Eddie had taken to talking for both himself and Richie that morning. He tried to pretend that hearing a person’s voice inside your head was something everyone did. He even had himself convinced that his friends probably heard his voice. Still, try as he might, Eddie couldn’t pull anyone else’s voice up to the front of his mind as readily as Richie’s. 

That, he thought, was an easy fix. He leaned over to the tiny bedside table and grabbed the phone. After seeing that Bill should well have been home from school by then, Eddie picked up the receiver and punched in his number. When Bill finally answered, Eddie was overwhelmed by the relief that seemed to flood through the speaker. “What the fuck, Eddie? They won’t let us come see you!” he said, finally regaining the ability to form sentences after the shock of hearing his oldest friend’s voice over the phone after a week. “Are you okay?” he asked.   


“We-” Eddie started, then stopped. He didn’t feel that it was his place to say we yet, but something deep within him allowed him to go on. “I’m fine. Richie’s still-” he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Comatose. Asleep. Out of it. Who knows. Still, he allowed himself the vaguest answer. “Fine. He’s asleep.”

Through the phone, Bill had calmed a little and Eddie could hear the rumple of his homework, or maybe his sketchbook, and the crunch of, if he had to guess, ketchup chips. “What happened?” he asked through a mouthful of crumbs.

Pulling his knees to his chest defensively, he sighed. He should've guessed, he supposed, that Bill wouldn't beat around the bush. Maybe he shouldn't have called… "It’s hard to say. They’re trying to figure that out."

Trying to sound as casual as possible, Bill said, "We told B-Ben to go check out the clubhouse and make sure everything’s still in decent shape." Truthfully, he was a little worried that their negligence had caused it. They'd been hanging out there in the underground clubhouse for years. No one had ever thought to question its structural integrity in years. They'd had no reason to believe it was unsafe. 

"It’s not that," Eddie assured.

The line was silent as Bill quietly tried to work through what Eddie wasn’t saying. "Then, what is it?" he asked patiently.

"I don’t want to say until Richie wakes up," he answered. It wasn’t that he'd been told not to. It wasn’t out of any nobility. He just wasn't sure he was ready to lay it all on the line. Not without Richie. Even despite the acknowledgment that bonds and soulmates aren't always chosen, the world wasn't always accepting of that. His mother's hesitance was proof positive of that. If this wasn't enough to make her accept that he was supposed to-

"W-when you say w-wakes up," Bill said, drawing Eddie from his internal panic with his own, "do you mean he h-h-h-hasn’t yet?" It was largely a baseless assumption, he knew, but he'd figured they'd come to together. That whatever had happened would have affected them both the same.

Glancing at Richie, hoping he was wrong, he tried to sound brave. For Richie, he could be. "Yeah," he answered quietly, realizing that Bill couldn't hear the nodding of his head through the phone.

"What happened?" he stammered.   


Leaning back against the rubbery mattress, Eddie could do no more than stare at the stippling of the drop ceiling. "We don’t really know. We can’t know until he wakes up."

Bill's stomach dropped. He sat in silence. He could remember the days before Georgie… he'd slipped into a coma after a particularly high fever. The last thing Bill remembered his little brother saying was a delirious fear that he was gonna kill him if he didn't get his boat back but he was afraid of clowns. Watching the little boy lay there silently had just about killed Bill. He could only imagine Eddie having to watch helplessly from a hospital bed beside him. "Is he going to?"

"Don’t go there, Bill" Eddie said, heart heavy for his two best friends. "The doctor said that…"

Closing his eyes, Bill tried to listen to Eddie, but all he could hear was the heartbreak and fear in his best friend's voice. "You guys are b-bonded, aren’t y-you?" There was silence on the line. If he hadn't heard a stifled sniff from Eddie, Bill would have been sure the line had gone dead. "I’ll take that as a y-yes," he surmised.

Bewildered, all Eddie could manage was a whispered, "What the hell?"

Shaking his head, Bill tried to choke down the nerves he felt for his friends. "S...S-Stan knew the minute he s-saw you guys."

"How?" he asked, wondering if he really wanted to know.

Bill shrugged, then took another chip out of the bag. "He just did." He answered with a crunch. "And you guys w-w-were unconscious but on t-top of one another. When we had to get you guys out, he kept apologizing every time he touched you. It didn’t look like you were in pain until we m-m-m-moved y-you." He sighed, trying to shake off the memory of finding two of his oldest friends unconscious in a place where no one but their friends would know to look; where they could never have been able to direct someone to them because so much of finding the clubhouse was on instinct by then. "We r-rode in the back of M-M-M-Mike’s truck and it was…" He struggled to come up with a good enough word, settling instead on "Weird. It was like you and R...Richie kept drifting b-back to one another. I kept t-trying to s-set you up s-straight so you w-wouldn’t hit your head or anything but S-S-S-Stan smacked my hand away every time-" He took a deep breath, then pitched his voice up to match the inflection Stan’s took when he was afraid. "If Eddie needs to be on top of Richie right now, let him. Just leave them be."

Suddenly mortified, Eddie realized that, maybe, there was more to that day than he remembered. "We weren’t like…" He fumbled, hoping Bill would understand. "Because I can’t remember what happened before we knocked out." He could feel the color rising in his cheeks and wished like hell it would stop, not that Bill could see it anyway.

Stumbling to ease his friend's mind, he said. "I mean, it was clear that you guys were like m...making out in the h...hammock or something, but you were still fully clothed and R...Richie was only missing his shirt so-"

"Okay," Eddie said, feeling himself ease a little. "That’s… At least that’s what I remember too. Okay." He hated this. He gripped the edge of the bed tightly, trying not to do something he thought he would regret. Something like get up and try the Sleeping Beauty approach on Richie. 

The boys remained silent, lost in thought for what felt like ages. Finally, Bill asked, "How long have you two been s-seeing each other?"

"We’re not," Eddie blurted out too quickly. "Not exactly. We’ve been…" He thought about it for a moment. Talking certainly wasn't the right word. For two boys who never seemed to shut up, they'd found other, much more agreeable ways to occupy their mouths. Instead, he settled weakly on, "doing that type of stuff, but we’re not…"

"You know that you didn’t have to hide that, right?" Bill said, returning to his snacking. 

Eddie rocked forward, resting his forehead on his knees. Sure, part of him knew that his friends would have gotten it. Their parents, though? Henry Bowers and his band of merry morons? Not so much. "Bill, it’s not that easy," he groaned. "You don’t get-"

As casually as though mentioning that he had finished his comic book or was enjoying the new grunge station from the college radio station out of Augusta, Bill stated, "I’m dating Mike." Eddie could almost see the nonplussed expression on his face.

Brain stalled, soundlessly searching for words, Eddie managed to make a quiet sound that vaguely resembled the word "You… "

"That easy," he crunched in response.

Eddie tried again. "You…"

Bill chucked his empty chip bag into the wastebasket under his desk. "M-me?" he said absently, waiting for Eddie to catch up.

"And Mike?"

"And, my boyfriend, Mike?" he sighed. Eddie made another stifled noise. Bill groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew it was probably best that Eddie was off of most of the machines he’d previously been hooked up to because, right then, Eddie’s blood pressure probably would have alerted every nurse in three counties. "What are you s-s-struggling with?"

That, he didn't know. It shouldn't have surprised him, he supposed. He pressed his fingers into the space just above his right eye, hoping to ease the blistering pain. “How are you…” He couldn’t bring himself to ask any of the things he wanted to. How are you sure? How are you and Mike managing to keep it to yourselves? How are you going to tell your parents if you haven’t already? Instead, all he could ask was a pitiful. “Aren’t you scared?”

“Of what?” Bill asked, truly baffled. 

“Everything?” Eddie scoffed.

The fact of the matter was, Anything that Bill could have been scared of, Mike quelled with a gentle hand or a reminder that they were in it together. They were partners. “No.” He smiled, realizing that the border of his math homework was littered with orchids, just like the ones in fiery tones that poured from the tire in Mike’s backyard. “No, I don’t think I am.”

All their lives, Eddie had found one reason or another to be just a little jealous of Bill. He was his first friend and, arguably, his best friend. Sure, what he’d had with Richie had always been different, and he loved Stan like, he would imagine, a brother. Even as the rest of their friends came along, they’d meant different things to him. But he’d even argue that he idolized Bill a little. What he didn’t expect, as they hung up the phone, that he’d suddenly be taxed with another.

It should have been easier. He knew that what he and Richie had was strong. He knew that there was no arguing with it, now. It was something special enough that nature decided on it before they did. Even with all that, he couldn’t be sure yet what that meant. There was a possibility that it was a Storgic bond and he couldn’t imagine living with that. How could he know that Richie would only love him as a friend when it was so much more than that for him?

So, somehow, still, Bill had what he wanted again. Bill was able to say the words ‘my boyfriend’ and believe them. Hell, he hadn’t even stuttered. Eddie wanted that.

Thinking over the advice he’d received, Eddie studied Richie carefully. He glanced up at his vitals on the screen. Heart rate, 105 bpm. A little too high. BP 127 over 80. Borderline. 100.3-degree fever. It was hardly something to panic over, he supposed. Those were typical flu numbers. Still, his brow beaded with sweat. His face was bunched in what looked like a nightmare. His fists were still balled in the sheets at his sides.

Eddie sat up and moved closer. He closed his hand over the other boy’s and closed his eyes. “Okay, Richie. I, uh…” He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to his thumb. “I'm going to do what they're telling me to. I'm climbing into bed with you.” He sat on the edge of the bed delicately, trying not to let his voice belay his trepidation. “No funny business, Trashmouth, okay? Let me take the lead on this one.” He swung his feet up onto the bed and pressed himself against Richie. “I know that, if the shoe was on the other foot, you wouldn't hesitate. You’d probably be trying to carry me around in one of those ridiculous baby carrier things,” he laughed, snaking one slipper socked foot up over his leg to rest it over him. “So, I'm just gonna go for it. It's just like you're barging into my bedroom but in reverse.” He didn’t even have to look up to realize that Richie’s heart rate had slowed dramatically. He could even feel him relax. “I'm taking this as a good thing,” he said hesitantly, then realized that one of the hands that had previously dug into the bed was sliding up his back and entangling in his shirt. “Okay. Jesus,” he hissed, finally looking up to see that every one of Richie’s vitals was stabilizing. It really was working. Even more obvious, he supposed, was the speed with which his headache had dissipated and the general unease he felt had gone. He sighed, nearly melting against Richie’s chest. “We probably should have talked about our feelings before you kissed me, huh?” he asked, hoping beyond his better judgment for a response. “Really wish we'd done that. Because I don't know what this bond is.” He pulled tighter and pressed a light kiss to the hollow of his throat. “I know what I want it to be. I know what I hope it is.” He waited patiently for any sign of him stirring. “I'll tell you what. I'm going to try to sleep,” he sighed. “Hopefully, you wake up before I do because I don't want to be the only one feeling like I'm being judged for something we didn't even do.” He thought about it, then tried to fight out a memory. “I mean, I don’t think we did, but we did, and… you know what I mean,” he said, finally giving up. “Or you would if you would wake the hell up.” He eased one hand up Richie’s cheek gently and into his hair, giving the sleeping beauty method a half-hearted attempt. He knew it was too good to be true. He thumbed lightly over the strong line of the sleeping boy’s jaw. “Dammit, Richie. Wake up,” he whispered.

Not long after, Eddie managed to fall back to sleep. It wasn’t particularly restful, nor was it pleasant. Still, it passed the time.

It was better than staring at Richie like a creep. That was for damn sure.


	3. If there are boundaries, I will try to knock them down.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie comes to. The boys learn a little about the bond.

What the fuck. What the actual fuck. That’s about all that could come through Richie’s mind as his senses began to become more alert. He started checking himself over. He felt funny. Heavier, almost. He couldn’t place it, really, but he owed it to himself to try. 

He started by wiggling his toes. Then his feet, his legs. He rolled his hips and that’s when he realized where the heaviness was coming from. Part of it, anyway. There was a person resting against him. He arched his back, rolled his shoulders, moved his arms, clenched and unclenched his hands. In his right hand was someone’s shirt. He moved his neck, then leaned down and, rather instinctively, rested his cheek against the unknown human cutting off his circulation. He took a few deep breaths and listened. There was a faint beep, the whirring and squeezing of some machines. There was chatter that seemed distant. Farther away, he heard the tinny voice of a speaker asking for any doctor to a fourth-floor room. 

Hospital. 

He didn’t have to think too much about the weight pressing on his right side. He knew that size, that shape. That form had grown along beside him and run beside him and slept beside him for years. It was Eddie.

Eddie was with him in a hospital bed. That realization caused his eyes to flutter open. Eddie was in pajamas, but with hospital socks and plastic bracelets, and his arm was bandaged where an IV would have been freshly removed. He was still gone, himself, and hooked up to all sorts of machines. So, there was a chance things were under wraps. It was still possible. There was another bed, after all. So, it was clear that they’d come in together. 

Richie tried to remember what happened. Thunder. The clubhouse. He worked through it and stopped, suddenly. He looked down at the sleeping boy in his arms and frowned. He looked exhausted. His skin was pale and dark circles adorned the normally bright eyes that dozed. 

Watching Eddie sleep wasn’t exactly a new thing for Richie, he’d caught himself doing it before, but something here felt different. Less intrusive. He looked so tired and, instead of the desire to gently mock him for it, he just wanted to keep him asleep. He was so peaceful, but it just didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem like he was resting. He seemed, even in sleep, to be worrying.

As it turned out, Richie didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Eddie began to stir, whining adorably as he did. Richie felt his heart twist with anticipation. When the smaller boy was finally close to waking up, Richie leaned down and pressed a kiss to his temple. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” he said, voice scarcely above a whisper. It didn’t matter that it was almost eight at night. It still counted as morning. He leaned down and kissed him again, this time a little more tenderly. "You in there, Eddie-Spaghetti?” 

Eddie whined a little and rolled closer, burying his face in Richie’s chest. “Richie?” he asked quietly. Richie hardly had time to acknowledge the way his sleepy voice saying his name had affected him before Eddie was 100% awake. He pushed himself back and up onto his knees, staring at his friend, startled. “What the fuck? Hi,” he laughed. Eddie rocked forward and wrapped Richie in a tight hug. “Oh my God, hi,” he repeated, relieved tears springing to his eyes. “Are you…”

“Am I what?” Richie asked, leaning up and pulling him into a gentle kiss. Hospital or no, he was not about to let this moment pass him by.

Thinking it over, Eddie sunk down against him. When he finally managed to put together a question, he settled on, “How are you?” That would do for now. 

Richie carded his fingers through the hair above Eddie’s ear, swiping away the last of his tears. "Fine, I think?" He wasn't sure. Truthfully, he'd been hoping that Eddie would have more of an answer for that than he would. 

"Fine?" Eddie questioned. People didn't sleep for the better part of a week and wake up fine. 

He smiled and propped himself up on his elbow. "You look like shit, though. Have you slept?" he asked, hoping for an answer. "What-"

A light smack landed on his arm and he laughed. "I look better than you do, asshole," Eddie sniped. "You scared the shit out of me, you know that. You've been unconscious for days!" He sat up and gave Richie a gentle but still frustrated shove. "Five, to be exact! I've been laying here staring at your ugly face waiting for you to open your stupid eyes so you could put your thick fucking glasses on," he said reaching across to the bedside table for the aforementioned spectacles and slid them onto Richie's face, "so that you could see it when I do this." He placed his hands on either side of Richie’s jaw and pulled him in close, kissing him long and hard before pulling back and giving his head a playful shake. "What the fuck, Richie?" He grumbled as he laid back down with him and kissed him once more, tenderly this time as his emotions calmed. "Don't do that. Ever again."

"I'm sorry?" Richie laughed. If he'd known ages ago that getting himself hurt was a surefire way to get Eddie to kiss it better, he'd have been much more reckless in his youth. 

"Good," Eddie said, much more frustrated than he'd intended to before hissing out strained, "Fuck." He was so relieved and had been so scared. Now that Richie was awake, he didn't know what to do with his pent up emotions, letting them escape in hot, angry tears. 

The boys were quiet for a while, lost in thought. Before long, Richie’s impatience got the better of him. "Hey, Eds?" he said; receiving merely an interested hum in response. "I don’t mean to alarm you, but…" he said, dragging his fingers up Eddie's arm and tapping just below the bandage where Eddie’s IV had been removed overnight, "we're in a hospital."

Eddie gave a solemn half laugh. "We are." He was still trying to wrap his mind around it. 

"What the fuck happened?" Richie asked, still missing pieces of that afternoon. 

Having figured that he was going to have to be the one to explain it, Eddie had wracked his brain trying to come up with the perfect way to explain it. "We…" Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the hesitance he felt, he had obviously not landed on it. "Uh. Well," he watched Richie's expectant face cautiously and swung his legs over the bed, standing in little ways away. "Let me show you," he suggested. 

Slowly, Eddie began taking giant steps toward the door, hesitating for a moment by the curtain. "Is something supposed to…" He took the final step out the door, gripping the frame to brace himself. Richie’s head began to spin. He flipped his glasses up onto his head and rubbed his eyes. He thought he might be sick and leaned forward to steady himself.

From a million miles away,, Eddie’s voice carried, "But…" and he stepped through the door, still supporting his weight on the wall but back inside.

Realizing what it had to be, Richie gave a stunned smile.. "That's something. So, did we…" He was bound to Eddie. He couldn't come up with a reason why. They hadn’t discussed what they were, so he couldn't imagine they would have. Still, he had to ask. "Did we do this intentionally?" Eddie shook his head. "Interesting," Richie mused while fighting the drum corps in his head. "Come back, please?" he asked, making a grabby hand for Eddie, who happily made his way back to the bed, righting the world along with. "I take it our parents didn't take it well?" he asked, finally noting their absence.

Again, Eddie exhaled a laugh.. "My mother didn't." Richie pulled him close and kissed the top of his head but he just rolled his eyes. Sonia had been the live wire. He'd expected as much. "Go figure. But, everyone else? They were actually fine. Your parents seemed-" he felt a strange sinking feeling in his chest and turned to face Richie, snaking one arm up over his side and pulling him in tight. "Wetll, they seemed to have expected it. In fact, they were very much encouraging. They’re worried about you, but I swear, it has nothing to do with us. Even my dad didn't even blink an eye.” 

That was difficult for Richie to believe. He was so sure that his parents would have been disappointed at best to find that their only son was bound to another guy. “Really?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound too skeptical.

“I told you,” Eddie said gently. “I told you they'd probably be fine.” He didn’t mean to say I told you so. Okay, maybe he did. But he didn’t want Richie to feel bad about it. Especially when they didn’t really have an answer for what they were, so there was no real point in telling people when whatever was between them could have been nothing.

But now? Now, it wasn’t nothing. It was definitely something. A big, important something .

Another calm silence fell over the boys. Eddie was just happy to finally be able to mark off a big portion of his worry as solved. Richie, on the other hand, was only getting started. He still had a million different questions. He just hoped Eddie wouldn’t get sick of it.

“Do we know what we’re dealing with here?” he asked eventually. He could only vaguely recall that there were 7 different categories of bonds: Erotic, Manic, Agapic, Storgic, Pragmatic, and Ludic. Each, obviously, subdivided into chosen and natural. If he remembered correctly, a bond could manifest as any combination of the 7.

“No,” Eddie answered softly, looking up at Richie hesitantly, hoping he’d be able to get a reading of what Richie was hoping for. “They were waiting to talk to you.”

“Makes sense,” he said with a nod. It did, he supposed. They would have had to get both his and Eddie’s side of the story, compare and contrast, probably scans and whatever other shit doctors did in cases like theirs. “What do you think?”

Eddie shrugged. “I don't feel any different,” he said. That probably didn’t mean much to Richihe, he realized after. What he meant was that, whatever the bond actually was, he definitely still wanted to be around Richie all the time, still wanted to joke with him, still wanted… well. Okay, maybe that was a little stronger than before.

Deflating a bit, Richie laughed. He hoped Eddie couldn’t sense his disappointment. “What does that mean?” he asked.

“I don't know,” Eddie laughed back, nudging him in the ribs to buy himself more room. “Do you feel different?”

He thought about it hard. He guessed he didn’t. More accurately, he certainly didn’t feel any less strongly about his decision to shove Eddie up against his bedroom wall a few weekends back and kiss the breath out of him. In fact, given the opportunity again, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop there. Richie, for all his merits, had one thing about himself that he hated more than anything else- the need for excess. If it was a part of his life, he wanted more. More and more until it became too much for anyone but his best friends and, usually, his parents to stand. Often, he wondered if it was too much even for them. He shook his head, wondering if it would be possible for too much Eddie. It didn’t seem like it, all things considered. “Well, I don't remember feeling like I was going to pass out if you left the room before.”

“Even when you were unconscious,” Eddie informed him. Just thinking about the rapid beeping and terrifyingly high numbers chilled him to the bone. “My mom tried to make me stay in another room. Your blood pressure skyrocketed. Your heart rate just about doubled. It was…”

Richie's stomach tied in knots. He could feel Eddie’s fear and he hated that he'd had any part in it. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, resting his forehead against Eddie's.

"No, no. Don't," Eddie insisted. It was strange, sensing Richie’s guilt and pain twisted and mangled with his own. He rubbed his hand up Richie’s back and closed his eyes. "Your parents pointed out the distance. I started to feel weak and panicky and all I knew was that I couldn't stay that far away from you. You needed to know I was there." Richie smiled at him. He slid one foot along Eddie’s leg and sneaked it through, pulling himself closer until their bodies were flush together. Eddie rolled his eyes, still smiling. "I thought your parents were telling me what to do, but they weren't. They just facilitated it. It was like I just knew." He leaned up and kissed Richie again. "I think that was when my mom realized it wasn't a joke."

"She's just jealous of you," he said, voice low. He rested his hand comfortingly on his neck and smiled. Eddie raised an eyebrow, then knew… "She doesn't know how she's gonna last without touching me for-"

Eddie pushed back and sat up, giving Richie a frustrated swat on the shoulder. "Shut up, dickhead. I'm trying to be serious."

Laughing, letting himself be shoved, Richie slid over to the side of the bed. "I know," he laughed, throwing his arms up instinctively. 

Suddenly, a wash of warmth cast out inside of him. He struggled for a moment to place it, but then realized it was affection. And it was from Eddie. If anyone had asked, he would never have been able to explain it. He just knew.. He had been right. Eddie did enjoy the teasing. 

"This isn’t funny," he whined, trying to fight off the impulse to smile. 

Basking in the newfound benefits of the bond, Richie gave a cocksure grin. "It kind of is," he snorted. He edged closer to Eddie and tugged his hand in between his own. 

Finally giving in, he smiled, too. "Is it?" He trailed the fingers of his free hand up Richie’s arm lazily. He'd never noticed the corded muscles in his forearms before. He certainly would be noticing them now. 

"Yeah. Come on," Richie laughed, joining their hands together curiously. "Being bound to your best friend? It's hysterical."

Eddie's mouth fell wide open. He pulled his hand back into his lap and frowned. He tried to fight it with a laugh, but the mere thought of it died on his lips. "That's… uh," he stammered, trying not to be hurt by it. Even now, after being bonded. Richie still saw him as just a friend. He had to accept that, he supposed. "Oh. Okay," he finally said when he was sure he'd be able to hide his disappointment.

"What?" Richie asked, staring at the space where Eddie’s hand had been. He reached for him again but he moved toward the footboard instead. Frowning, he sat up and scooted toward him. 

Eddie shook his head and looked down sadly. "It's nothing." 

His furrowed brow and fidgeting hands would have rated him out to begin with. Now, though, Richie could feel the sinking feeling in his stomach and the racing of his heart. More than that, he thought that if he focused hard enough, he might be able to figure out why.

“Eds, calm down,” he prompted, reaching for him again, this time catching his leg and rubbing small circles with his thumb. 

Eddie seemed to settle a little, against his real feelings. “I am calm,” he lied. He didn’t think he could handle it if all he ever was to Richie was a friend.

“No, you're not,” Richie said. He shook his head and laid his palm out flat, reaching for but not quite finding him. Yeah, he could definitely figure out why. “I'm sorry. I was kidding. You know you're more than that,” he said, hanging his head. He thought Eddie knew that. He thought Eddie had always known that.

Eyes wide open, Eddie froze. Richie thought he knew.

Suddenly, it hit him. So much of that conversation had been unsaid. The realization seemed to dawn on Richie at the same time as he scratched his head and leaned back. Eddie watched him carefully, hoping to get more insights. “That's weird.” He tried to rationalize why no one would have mentioned the intuition to him before. It would explain some things about his parents, that’s for sure.

Richie laughed and shook his head. He sat up straight and opened his arms. “Come here.” Eddie considered him carefully. He knew that he was going to end up obliging, but he wanted to hold on to some feeling of having the final say. But he saw that glint of remorse, how truly sad Richie was that Eddie had thought, for even a second, he didn’t want more when he was the one that had initiated the more that they’d already had. He saw it and he wanted more than anything else to make that go away. He moved back to the center of the too-small hospital bed and wrapped his arms around Richie’s middle. Pressing his cheek against the top of Eddie’s head, he explained, “I'm saying best friend because we really don't know what type of bond this is. We can guess. I know how I feel about it,” he glanced down at the smaller boy expectantly. He hoped that Eddie might admit that he did, too. Then, they could talk about it and get it out of the way. When that appeared to be entirely unlikely, he continued. “I can sort of feel what's going on with you, which is a trip because like I always thought I could but knowing that I can is kind of rad. But I think you're still going to have to talk to me.” He knew he was rambling a bit, but he didn’t care. Truthfully, he was fairly sure that the best way for him to get Eddie talking was to just keep saying the first words that came out of his mouth, but that wouldn’t necessarily have been helpful in getting the conversation where he wanted it to go.

Unfortunately for Richie, that probably would have been better than Eddie’s quiet “Okay.”

He pantomimed flipping through a book, then adjusted his glasses, reading the elusive fine print. He nudged Eddie in the ribs lightly. “Ahem, this would be the part where you tell me what's going on in that head of yours.” Eddie stared up at him then slunk down. Richie hadn’t heard his mother. He didn’t dare admit anything. Instead, he sighed. “Or, I can stop putting pressure on you.” 

“Thank you,” Eddie said, coming back to meet him with a kiss. He felt himself move into Richie’s touch, one strong hand cupping his jaw, the other grasping his side. His breath hitched and he inched closer. Richie tugged lightly on his bottom lip with his teeth and Eddie released the faintest gasp, arching his back involuntarily. Richie smiled into the kiss. Eddie had been responsive, but this was new. With trembling fingers, he trailed along the bottom of Eddie’s shirt 

As much as Eddie wanted to follow Richie down that rabbithole, he knew they had to stop. He was not going to have the doctor or their parents or any of the nurses who came in and out periodically walking in to find him feeling up someone who was supposed to be unconscious. 

A little disappointed, but wordlessly understanding the sudden brake run, Richie adjusted himself into a corner. Eddie frowned. That wasn’t what he wanted. He snuggled up beside him, pulling Richie’s arm over his shoulder and leaned up, 

Richie asked Eddie again what he’d been feeling in the time since waking up. He hadn’t really thought about it that critically. In truth, since being moved into the same room, he’d been feeling airly normal. He told him about the distance affected issues, but assured that Richie shouldn’t ve feeling most of that because, clearly, distance was no longer an issue. Richie snaked one arm around Eddie’s middle and pressed his forehead into his shoulder. “Fuck. I feel like I got hit by a freight train.”

Reaching up at an awkward angle, he petted Richie’s hair gently. “Struck by lightning,” he corrected. 

As he lay there, he couldn’t help but wonder how, exactly, this had happened. He had his feelings, sure, and Richie had his, but they weren’t… Gentle touches and warm glances were not them. Still, he wasn’t going to argue against how nice it was to be held by Richie. And maybe, more than once, he’d found himself doing something rough, like grabbing Richie’s hair and shaking his head for attention just because he was looking for a way to run his fingers through it without it being weird. Now, he didn’t need to have a reason. It was just understood. He was allowed. And Richie was allowed to touch him and people wouldn’t really raise an eyebrow. Derry was a small town, after all, and people talked. It would only be a matter of time before everyone knew. The thought scared him, a little, but in the grand scheme of things? Fuck ‘em. It was none of their business anyway, but they’d know that they were bound and the adults would, at the very least, have to sympathize. They’d been there. They’d have known that they couldn’t exactly control the need to be touching. It was compulsory.

But they were still boys and Derry was still Derry and oh, God, they were so screwed.

Richie didn’t seem to notice Eddie’s internal monologue past his own aching lethargy. “Oh. Okay, that makes sense,” he agreed. After a moment, it sunk in. They had been struck by lightning in the underground clubhouse in the barrens. “Wait, how did we end up here?” he asked.

“Bill & Stan found us,” he answered, adjusting his angle in Richie’s arms to face him. “They ran to Mike’s to get help. Loaded us into the back of his truck and got us here,” he said simply. It was anything but simple. They were lucky that Stan was as adamant about timeliness as he was. Even though an accurate timetable was impossible, the fact that the boys had gone to the clubhouse immediately after school and Bill and Stan had shown up at 6:15 exactly meant that there was only so much of a window in their timeline. It couldn’t have been long.

He hated that thought. He hated the thought of not being able to explain- of not being able to at least see their reactions. “Have they been-” he began to ask, trying to keep his reaction in check. It was okay, it didn’t matter, they were going to find out eventually- all of the same comforting b.s. he would have told anyone else. He shook his head, then finally asked, “Do they know?”

Eddie gave a half smile and laced their fingers together. “They tried. Apparently, they aren't allowed,” he answered. Richie gave a nod. That was probably for the best. He wasn’t ready for the reactions of the group yet. “Bill called. He said he'd tell Stan and Mike we’re okay. As far as knowing…” He could feel Richie tense and pulled their coupled hands closer to his chest. “Yeah. Bill definitely knows. Stan doesn’t  _ know _ , but he knows.” 

Richie laughed. In truth, even though Stan didn’t know about Eddie in the most concrete sense of the word, he knew. He’d walked in on Richie beating his pillow to death on the day Eddie admitted that Francey Parker had asked him to the homecoming dance and he’d said yes. Stan took one look at the scene before him and told Richie that he just had to make sure he asked about prom ahead of time. 

“Mike, could go either way, but if Bill knows, Mike probably does, too,” Eddie admitted.

“Why?” Richie asked. Eddie simply looked up at him, trailed his thumb gently over Richie’s jaw, and pulled him into a kiss. Richie mirrored his position, but tried, lightly, to pull back. When they parted, Eddie looked at Richie knowingly, then kissed him again. Even though that didn’t answer his question, he thought, maybe, he saw the slightest look in his eyes that insisted that Richie knew. And, deep down, he searched. He searched and searched until finally, a memory of the two of them sitting quietly on a bench in the park. Mike had rested his hand on Bill’s thigh and Bill had shifted toward him. Richie hadn’t thought anything of it, too buried in the image of Eddie going to town on the bomb pop in his hand to care, but it was there in the background. Quiet and assured, and he had never bothered to look for it. “Oh,” he said, a little louder than he’d intended.

Eddie smiled, hoping that, maybe, Richie would start to realize that it was all going to be okay. “Bev and Ben don't know, I don't think.”

“Well, at least we get to tell someone together,” Richie said, wrapping his arms around Eddie tightly. He closed his eyes, letting the rhythm of Eddie’s breathing calm him. It was nice, he thought. Quiet. Peaceful. 

The word together pinged around in his head like a rogue pinball desperate to find a place to rest. That was the thing. He and Eddie weren’t together. They had never even talked about it. There was kissing. A lot of kissing. There were moments where it seemed like the topic could be broached. The idea of together hung over their every interaction. 

For most people, he figured, a bond would clinch it. They were together. 

But Eddie didn’t seem to want to bring it up past the immediate fear that overtook him when he thought that Richie only saw him as a friend. All he’d been trying to do was respect those boundaries. He didn’t want to assume. He couldn’t imagine the pain that would come from opening that discussion only to find that Eddie didn’t see him that way. 

No, as a matter of fact, he was okay never having that conversation.

Especially, Richie thought idly, if not having that conversation meant that he could hold Eddie like this for just a few minutes longer. It wasn’t like they’d never shared a bed. They’d been having sleepovers for as long as either of them could remember. But this was different. This was close and… dare he say, intimate? He nearly gagged over the use of the word, even inside his own head. But something about it was right. It fit. 

Much too soon, the door creaked open and in came the doctor. The boys darted away from each other, like a bucket of ice water had been splashed onto them. 

The doctor smiled warmly. “Welcome back, Mr. Tozier. Nice to see you awake. I'm Dr. Boniface,” he said, repeating his introduction and sitting in the chair by the bed. “I am a Vinculogist from Augusta.” Richie scrunched his eyebrows and looked at Eddie. “Basically, I specialize in bonds, particularly unknown and unintentional ones. I know your fathers from way back. Even Eddie and I are old pals now,” he said, nodding at Eddie. “How are we feeling?”

“Better,” Eddie said. This time, he really meant it. Richie was awake, so that was like, 60% of his worries for the moment relieved. In fact, he knew there were other things he should be worried about, but for the time being, he was good.

Smiling warmly, the older man notated something on the paperwork he’d brought in with him. “I'll bet,” he said, voice kind and understanding. He looked up from the page. “How about you, Richie?”

He thought about it for a while. He didn’t want to just say something stupid like “Fine, Doc, really. Can we get out of here now,” which is what he desperately wanted to say. Instead, he settled on, “Confused and sore.”

“That's to be expected,” he said, looking back to his notes. “How long have you been up?” he asked.

Richie shrugged, looking up at the clock on the wall, then at Eddie for confirmation. “20 minutes. Half hour tops,” he said. That sounded right. Best he could figure.

Without so much as looking up, he continued to mark casually on the pages in front of him. For having said less than a dozen words, that was a lot of writing. “Good. That's good,” he said finally, looking up at the boys. He made a mental note of their clasped hands and how it appeared that Eddie’s legs were hooked over Richie’s right leg. That was good, he thought. I don’t have to remind them of that. “How much has Eddie told you?”

“Not much,” Richie said, quickly adding. “We might be bonded?”

“Are. That much we can confirm,” he said. “I wouldn’t be here anymore if you weren’t.”

His stomach flipped nervously. “Okay. And we were struck by lightning?” he asked again.

The doctor hummed. “Sort of. You were near to a lightning strike. Because you were underground, I’m not going to say you were struck. But, the energy was definitely part of it.”

“Is that why it took him so long to come to?” Eddie asked, more out of curiosity than anything else.

“Probably not. Sometimes, people just take longer,” he shrugged. He knew that many people didn’t buy into vinculogy as a science as so much was impossible to really know, but he hoped that, being on the receiving end of an involuntary one, the boys would be more receptive to what he did know. “Especially at your age and with unintentional bonds. I had a couple two years ago, boy and a girl your age, the girl was out almost two weeks. There were other properties at play. Theirs was voluntary but he didn't feel the same as she did,” he said, recalling the case vividly. 

“What happened?” Eddie asked.

He recalled the complications to himself but didn’t want to scare the boys. The girl had nearly died of a broken heart. The boy had left. He had an affair. He was gone with no word for a month. But none of that was important, he supposed. “He grew to feel the same. It just took longer for him to come around.”

Richie looked worried. “I thought it was instantaneous,” he asked. If this was it, what was this supposed to be. It was comfortable, but he truly didn’t feel any different. He didn’t know what he was expecting. Was he expecting more? Less? Different? He looked over at Eddie and felt himself lost in wonder.

“It can be,” Dr. Boniface answered. “What you need to remember is that there’s nothing routine here. Nothing that happens for you two will be exactly the same as what happened for your parents. Nothing that happens for you is guaranteed to happen for your friends down the line.”

Eddie hated that answer. With everything else he’d ever heard of that would land you in the hospital, there was at least a roadmap. “So, what's the prognosis?” he asked.

Dr. Boniface took off his glasses and folded his papers down. “Well, it looks like you're stuck with each other,” he said.

“Obviously, but our school hasn't really told us what to expect other than sunshine and rainbows with your true love,” Eddie said, a little more snippy than he meant. Richie stared at him. He agreed, sure, but Derry’s shortcomings weren’t exactly Dr. Boniface’s fault. 

“Oh. Well, do you know about the physical aspects?”

“No,” Eddie answered. His mother had never told him anything. His father tended to concede to whatever his mother wanted in that regard. 

He turned and questioned Richie. “Your parents haven't told you anything? I’d have thought that-”

Richie pursed his lips and shrugged. “Not really.” It wasn’t that they’d never discussed bonds before. They had. But every time they did, it seemed to cause a strange shift in his parents moods and he tried to avoid it. 

That was something that Dr. Boniface hated about the way some people parented. He brushed his lap off and dropped his spectacles in the pocket of his lab coat. “Well, first, as the name implies, you are quite literally bound to one another.” He gestured at their entwined frames and fought a laugh. “You'll find, for some time, being apart, even sometimes as little as in the next room, will be uncomfortable,” he said. Both boys looked up at him expectantly. He sighed. He wasn’t expecting to have to start from the ground up. “There have been hundreds of symptoms documented, but most common are elevated heart rate, anxiety, nausea, headache, confusion, blurred vision, auditory phenomenon, dizziness, cold sweats. The longer it is, the worse it will get. After extended periods of time, fainting is not uncommon. By that point, it becomes a recovery period and you’ll definitely want to seek professional attention if one of you is unconscious for an extended period of time.”

Richie’s mouth dropped open. “Okay. Wow,” he gulped. He wrapped his arm around Eddie and whispered, “So, I hope you were kidding about all those times you said you hate me.”

“Not in the slightest,” he laughed, running his thumb across Richie’s forearm.

All things considered, it wasn’t the worst. Basically, momentary flu symptoms if they were physically separated. Not deadly. “Is that it?” Richie asked, hoping that was it.

“No. It also can be quite painful for you to be touched by anyone but each other,” he said leaning into the chair.

Eddie remembered the searing pain when his mother touched his shoulder. He thought he’d imagined it. “Is that why no one has laid a finger on either of us?” he asked.

“And why our friends aren't allowed to visit?” Richie tagged on.

Dr. Boniface nodded. “Essentially, yes.”

Richie looked back at him again. “Painful how?”

“Again, different for everyone,” he said casually. “Usually, though, it's a burn.”

Ever the one to have to experience something to believe it, Richie eased himself up and offered his left arm to the doctor. “Show me,” he said. 

The doctor stood up and took a step away. Never in all his years of practice had he had a patient ask for that. “I-” He looked at Eddie with wide eyes.

“First do no harm, Richie,” Eddie sighed, shaking his head. He wished he could be shocked. He wished he could say that this was the most bizarre place Richie’s boundless curiosity had reared it’s ugly head. That, however, would have been a lie.

“This isn’t harm,” Richie wined, raising to his knees and moving closer to the foot of the bed. “It's teaching in a controlled environment. It's science, right?” He looked back over his shoulder at Eddie who suddenly looked exhausted.

The doctor glanced at the monitor. Richie’s levels were healthy. He was correct, in theory. There was no safer place to demonstrate it. “I suppose,” he said, still not sold. He looked up at Eddie cautiously. “Are you okay with this?”

Eddie rolled his eyes and settled back into the bed. “It took him intentionally running his hand through poison ivy to believe it had that reaction on everyone and I wasn’t just allergic to it. So yeah, go ahead. He doesn't learn without it,” he said. Richie started to look offended, but then he thought about it and decided that it was probably fair.

Still, Dr. Boniface wasn’t sure. “It's not that simple,” he tried to warn.

“It's fine. We want to know,” Eddie assured.

Realizing that there was no arguing with them, he sighed and reached out, grabbing Richie’s wrist for no more than two seconds. 

Surprising both boys, Eddie responded first. A hissed “Ah! Escaped his lips as he grabbed his wrist.

Richie, on the other hand, felt like he’d set himself alight. “Jesus! Fuck!” he shouted, grabbing his own wrist to examine it for the burns he was almost sure would be there.

“That's what I was getting at,” he said, not trying to mask the clear ‘I Told You So,’ in his voice. “You can sense things about each other, but you'll also quite literally feel each other's pain. But, not just physically. Emotionally, too.” The boys exchanged a worried glance. Suddenly, the doctor moved away from them. “I've got it. Eddie, come over here,” he beckoned. “That's a good boy. In the interest of scientific learning, I’ve got a much nicer one. Richie, close your eyes.” After Richie had done as he was told, the doctor leaned in closely and whispered something very very quietly to Eddie. Eddie pulled away and watched him with wide eyes and a thinly veiled smile. “Now, Richie, do you have any idea what I said to him?”

“No,” Richie laughed. The mere thought of it was absurd. He didn’t even know that he had said anything to him.

The doctor folded his arms. “How about what he feels?” he prompted.

Giving in to the game, Richie focused on Eddie. “He's… his heart is racing,” he said. He tried to pinpoint why. “He's excited and scared and doesn't believe you, maybe. He opened his eyes just in time to see Eddie looking stunned and betrayed at the doctor.

“I’m sorry-”

“That's alright,” he laughed. “I don't expect you to, but you'll see that I'm right.” Eddie went back to the bed and curled up beside Richie, pouting at him pointedly. “And things will feel larger and more intense than they had before. Little things will drive you crazy.” 

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Great,” he groaned.

“But that can go both ways,” Dr. Boniface offered, hoping that to be a ray of light.

A ray of light, it was. Richie wiggled his eyebrows at Eddie, needling him in the side. “Ooh, baby,” he cooed.

Raising one hand up to his mouth in an effort to silence him, Eddie tried to warn, “Richie, I swear-” but he was cut off By Richie popping one of his fingers into his mouth and sliding off of it with an obscene pop.

“Exactly,” the older man laughed. “Don't fight that. Incidentally, that leads me to my next and final point. You'll find that bonds change things. Things you might not have been willing to do or even think, you won't be able to avoid. Go with the flow.” 

Richie’s face lit up. “He's talking about sex,” he said in a stage whisper.

“Fuck you, dude. I know that,” he whined, swiping at Richie’s now wandering hands. It was all well and good that they were given the green light, but that didn’t mean he was ready. It certainly didn’t mean that he wanted to demonstrate it in front of a medical professional. And not before they actually talked about it.

“That is the general idea,” the doctor agreed, earning him a cheeky smile from Richie. “But bear in mind, with all the heightened emotions and sensations, you may find that things change and settle into place where needs dictate.”

Again, Richie leaned in to Eddie, lips pressed gently against his ear. “I needs my di-”

Eddie scooted away, making a big show of his disgust. “Shut  _ up _ , Richie,” he hissed, smacking his hands away.

The doctor gave a tired smile. For once, he was glad he didn’t have to worry about encouraging sexual exploration in an unintentional bond, especially one that hadn’t already been a couple. “Just, keep the traditional safe sex practices in mind if your bodies do tell you to partake,” he suggested.

That threw both boys for a loop. “Why?” Richie asked, not seeing the point, really. If it was pretty much guaranteed that the only person he was going to be touching was Eddie, why should either of them have to worry about anything in that area.

“Just, trust me,” the doctor warned. “Do you boys have any questions for me before I go?”

“About a million, but I can't seem to wrap my head around any of them,” Eddie said. The doctor certainly understood that. He turned to Richie.

Richie seemed to be thinking about it hard. “Just one. If being in separate rooms has been proven to have those symptoms, how are we supposed to live in separate houses and go to different classes?” he asked.

Taken aback by the fact that Richie was the one to come up with the pragmatic question this early, he stammered a moment. “You're not. We'll deal with all of that when the time comes. For the time being, you'll be staying here for at least another couple of nights until we're sure your bond is stable and that accommodations for the two of you can be met. I'll see if I can't get my hands on a bed that might accommodate two more comfortably,” he said, noting the way they seemed to have to wrap into each other, marked it on his pages and leaning back against the wall. “Still, most of this will be your call. You’ll need support and I will do everything I can to get you that. The thing you’ll need to remember is that it’s your lives here.” He addressed them seriously. “You don’t have much choice in many things right now, but the two of you are now a package deal. Where you go, he goes. That carries into your living situation,” he said. He knew that wasn’t going to be an easy task, but the groundwork had already been laid. “Your parents know that. As far as school goes, think very critically about whether or not you’ll want to go back to Derry High. Public schools are crowded places full of little assholes who aren’t going to understand or want to know. There've been cases of young people being severely injured in hallways and worst of all gym classes or sports teams. Not to mention your classmates that might have their sights set on you because of it.” Mr. Kaspbrak had mentioned that the boys and their friends were often targets of some more severe schoolyard bullying. That would be a major problem. He then, slipping his glasses back on, set his sights on Richie. “Also, keep in mind that you’ll find it hard to concentrate if you're not touching, so classroom learning may not be in your best interest, especially if one of you-” 

Sighing as he picked up on the impending lecture. “My ADHD will make it worse.” Richie rolled his eyes when the doctor seemed shocked he’d have thought of it. Eddie tightened his grip on his hand comfortingly. “Yeah, figured that.”

Still, trying to keep the point positive, he added, “But, it's not unheard of that Eddie’s presence will create a balance you hadn’t had before.” 

Richie nodded uncomfortably. That made it sound an awful lot like the first doctor his parents had taken him to, encouraging him to be normal and to use what he had to “curb his wild side.” He didn’t like the idea of Eddie being a coping mechanism for anyone, least of all himself.

Sensing the distress and eager to end the meeting himself, Eddie nodded graciously. “Thank you, Dr. Boniface,” he said, trying hard not to add a curt tag to it. As soon as he turned away, Eddie snarled his lip. He knew that he hadn’t meant anything by it, but the way he felt Richie’s walls go up made him angry. People never realized how something so small could truly hurt a person. 

The boys sat in silence for a short while, digesting all of the information they’d received. There was really only one thing he could think to do. And, God damn it, he was allowed. Eddie glanced quickly toward the door and sent out a prayer to the universe that no one would come in. He rolled over onto Richie and smiled down at him. Richie hardly had time to react before Eddie had captured his mouth with his own. 

Reaching up, Richie kept one hand firmly on the side of Eddie’s face. He hummed into his mouth and silently cursed the fact that he was still in a hospital gown while Eddie had already changed into pajamas. There was no disguising how strongly he felt about the sudden development. 

Eddie, however, certainly seemed to enjoy teasing him about it. He rested his hands on Richie’s thighs and slid them up.

But as quickly as the idea had come to him, Eddie darted back off of him. Panting through kiss bitten lips, Richie looked up at him. He didn’t have to ask. It was too much, too soon.

Guiltily, Eddie settled back into his spot under Richie’s arm. Clearly, it was still going to take some work. “So, what now?” he asked quietly.

That, Richie didn’t have an answer for.


	4. bright, tight forever drum could not describe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before the boys get sent home, there are a few odd things that need to be addressed between them. Also, Maggie has a surprise for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay. I'm having a hell of a week and with all of the Loserfest things I'd been doing. Being a grownup sucks.

The next morning, the clatter of footsteps signaled to the boys that their parents were inbound and, unsurprisingly, together. Richie and Eddie shifted away from one another slightly, trying to make it less awkward for all involved. They were thankful for the slightly larger bed because it did make positioning themselves much more comfortable. Years of sleepovers had made it obvious that Eddie was more comfortable if Richie was to his left. One night of sleeping in the same bed as a- whatever they were- had revealed that they were both very touchy sleepers. How much of that was to be credited to the bond, he couldn’t be sure, but waking up with his arms draped around Richie, one leg snaked between his, was certainly the most comfortable and rested he'd ever slept. 

"How're we doing in here?" Frank asked quietly as he peeked around the curtain. 

"Better," Richie answered with a broad smile.

Eddie nodded in agreement and reached for Richie’s hand. "Yeah, lots." 

While he had kept his composure for the most part, barring the part where he had openly disobeyed his mother for the first time in his life and wound up getting her barred from the premises, Eddie had been a wreck. His father could tell how every moment Richie had spent unconscious had seemed to drain Eddie. For as confused and overwhelmed by the whole thing as they all were, the one part about it that made any sense was that it was them.

It had always been them. 

Being born six months apart, the boys didn't know a world without each other. With their fathers being best friends, it had been playdates and boy's weekends. Soon, it became clear that the kids were just as invested as the adults. Over time, one thought nagged at the back of Frank's mind: they were soulmates. No matter what happened in his life to disillusion him of the mere idea of them, he could see it in the most basic, innocent of their interactions. 

And it terrified him.

Once it reached the stage they'd reached, he had decided, especially in the face of his wife's reaction, he would never be anything less than supportive. "Glad to hear it," he said. And he was. He looked down at his son and had to actively remind himself not to touch him. "You boys need anything from home?"

Went and Maggie sat down in the chairs by the window. "Any specific snacks or clothes or anything?" he asked, knowing Eddie, at least, must have been sick to death of hospital food. 

Both boys shook their heads. They were fine, really. 

Calling their bluff, Maggie reached down into her bag and asked "Not even these," as she pulled out a bag of goldfish crackers and a bag of gummy worms, tossing them onto the bed. She couldn’t help but laugh as Richie immediately tore into the fish and Eddie grabbed the candy. She knew her kids. Then, she reached into her bag and came up with a pair of pajama pants and a comfy shirt for Richie and a handful of hospital appropriate activities- coloring books, playing cards, and the like. "Or these?" 

"Thank you, Mrs. Tozier," Eddie said, politely. Richie, on the contrary, splattered his thanks through a mouthful of crumbs, his bedmate cursing himself for finding it endearing.

As she leaned forward onto the footboard of the bed, she said seriously. "I've been telling you for years to call me Maggie. I think, now," she added, glancing at her husband, "It's probably okay that you call us mom & dad."

Floored, all Eddie could do was stammer. 

She understood. It had been a lot, but she wanted to make sure that there was never any doubt. "Just think about it, okay?"

"Okay," he nodded. He was grateful for Richie’s intuition as he snaked his arm around his lower back and gave him a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

Tagging off of her, Frank nodded. "Same goes for you, Richie. I mean, I don't presume to speak on behalf of Sonia,' he said, rolling his eyes in just such a way that gave Richie a strange sense that he was looking headlong into the rest of his life, "but, we're family." 

Quietly, Went let out a breath and smiled to himself. 

"You got it, big guy!" Richie said jovial, aiming finger guns his way.

Eddie regarded his father with a slightly amused expression. "You're gonna regret that."

"Hey!" Richie whimpered, sticking out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout. 

"I'm kidding, Richie," he answered flatly, then gave a smile, kissing him gently. 

Breaking the kiss just long enough to give a comically dejected "Okay," coming back in for a peck before either of them had time to compartmentalize the fact that they'd just shared an intimate moment with the world for the first time, in front of their parents, no less. 

Eddie couldn’t truly find it in himself to care. He had been floating in a bit of a euphoric haze since Richie had woken up and he’d finally let him call the doctor in. Everything was fine. The worst of it, to the best of his thinking, was behind them. 

On the other hand, as the group sat and chatted happily, his parents sharing stories of the early days of their bonding, laughing at how intense everything felt at the time, Richie’s mind was spinning in circles. He hardly heard Frank start to speak over the voices in his own head. 

“You boys are taking this really well. You do know that, don't you?” he said, resting against the arm of Went’s chair. He looked at the pair of them, trying so hard to see them as grown, now, as opposed to just kids. They were still young, sure, but this a lot. “I'm really proud of you,” he added, addressing them both.

Richie nodded absently, only finding his way back into the conversation when Eddie’s hand found its way to his leg, grounding him. After spending so many years afraid of how his parents might react if they found out he liked guys, he couldn’t help but still be on his guard. He kept waiting for the hammer to drop- for just one thing to upset the easy, dare he say it, happy reaction everyone had had.

Unaware of his son’s hesitance, Went added. “There are so many uncertainties. I wouldn't blame either you for being less amenable to the changes you're going to go through,” he said, laughing to himself as he watched the boys continue to tangle and untangle their feet, “especially since you didn't really sign up for it.”

Eddie gave a halfhearted shrug. "I mean, if I had to go through this with anyone, I don't-" he looked over at Richie and thought about his other friends, as though there was ever any other possibility. Bill was cute, but definitely not someone he could see himself in love with. Even from an objective standpoint, Bev was out. A part of him had always known it wouldn’t be a girl. Stan and he would fight too much. Ben was too sweet, not to mention that the look on his face when he realized it wasn’t Bev would have probably killed them both on the spot. Mike… That was a thought, but no. No. He looked over at the boy now clinging to his left hand and nodded, confidence growing. “I don’t think I could ever have wanted it to be anyone else.”

“Aw, Eds!” Richie cooed, wrapping him in his arms and covering his cheek in cartoonishly loud pecks. 

“You're gonna regret that,” their fathers both pointed out in unison as Maggie just rolled her eyes at the four of them. 

The rest of their day went fairly easily. They had a few more scans to sit through, a session with a therapist who, surprisingly, gave them an all clear, but said that they would check back in in 6 months unless they thought they’d need to reach out sooner, but other than that, absolutely nothing on their agenda. One of the things they’d been told to try and get on the same page about was how they wanted to address each other. There was no need to rush anything or slap a label on it for general consumption, but just for their own peace of mind. It might help, the therapist said, to get a good gauge on how to build from the relationship they already had. 

Richie had laughed, loudly and rudely. Eddie nodded, but internally was checked out to just about everything she was saying, much more interested in the game of Gin they’d left on the table. 

Problem was, the psyche doesn’t work like that. By two am, Eddie was sound asleep, nestled into Richie’s chest. Richie, on the other hand, jerked wide awake. He laid there for a moment and stared at him. “Eds…” he whispered. No response. Immediately, his body filled with dread. “Eds!” He gave him a little shake and forcibly woke him up, then played innocent. “Hey, are you awake?”

“I wasn't,” he groaned, stretching a little. Before he could so much as open his eyes, he could nearly feel the fear vibrating off of Richie. “Are you okay? What's wrong?”

“Nothing. It's nothing… just…”

Eddie sighed. “Richie, you woke me out of a sound sleep. There had to be something.” He pressed a kiss to his shoulder and rubbed his arm gently.

Dismissing it shyly, he said, “It's stupid.” 

“So are you,” he quipped, earning a laugh in response. “Tell me so we can go back to sleep.”

Richie took a deep breath and pulled him in close. “I was having a dream. And…” Letting the arm that wasn’t pinned under Eddie flop down to the mattress, he shook his head, feeling tremendously stupid. “I don't know.”

“Richie…” Eddie watched him for a moment as he stared up at the ceiling. Knowing the answer, he still asked anyway. “Good or bad?”

“Bad.”

Closing his eyes, Eddie pressed his face into Richie’s chest. “Bad like a memory, bad like something you're worried about, or bad like,” he let out a yawn, then added, “your freckles turned into tiny vacuums that sucked out your soul through your eyeballs?”

“Bad like…” Richie tried to answer him seriously. He did. But he couldn’t possibly get past the last one, “what? Wait-” he tried to cough down a laugh, then guffawed, “is that what you dream about? Are you okay? Do we need to talk about this?” He rolled Eddie onto his back, then hovered over him to pop the light on.

Eddie nearly hissed at the annoyance. And the light, too. “Richie…” he whined.

“I mean, seriously, Eds, if that's the type of dream you have, maybe you should-”

“It wasn’t a dr-” Eddie looked at Richie, who was still losing it. He sighed. “Look. You wake me up in the middle of the night about a dream and I'm trying to figure it out without you telling me so I'm throwing suggestions out there to try and make it easier.” He rolled onto his side, facing Richie. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head and pulled Eddie in. When he finally settled, he gave a quiet “No.” 

  
“No?” Eddie asked. He woke him up for what, then? Sitting up, he covered his face, frustrated. “Dammit, Richie. I-”

“I wanted to make sure you were alive, okay?” he snapped, frustrated by his brain’s attempt at whatever that was. It was almost embarrassing. “That's it. I had a dream that you died and I…” The images of Eddie, torn apart, played through his head again and he felt himself start to panic. He slid his hand up Eddie’s side and rubbed his thumb in gentle circles, “needed to make sure.”

Eddie moved closer to him until they were pressed flush against one another. He combed his hands through Richie’s hair, pushing the mussed bedhead back and catching a rare look at his eyes without glasses. He kissed his forehead, then spoke as gently as he could manage amidst his frustration at the rude awakening. “Richie, look. First and foremost, right now, you don't have to worry about that. You would absolutely know if something was wrong with me,” he assured. The doctor had told them as much mere hours before. They’d reiterated that, at least for the next couple of years, any grave injuries to one would have dire consequences for the other. “You, more than anyone. Not only am I literally wrapped in your arms, but we are connected now. You'd know.” Richie hadn’t wanted to hear about what had happened while he was unconscious. He felt guilty enough as it was. Still, he needed to remind him. “The doctors were using me as a gauge of whether or not to worry about you. The fact that you thought to wake me up means that you know I can be.”

He ruminated on it for a little while. That was fair, he supposed. Still, he couldn’t imagine a world in which he wouldn’t try to wake Eddie up. Even if he was dead in front of him. Even if Edie had been dead for years. He would always be a part of his instinct. “Is it so bad that maybe I just needed to talk to you?” he asked, toying with the hem of Eddie’s shirt and rested his hand against his skin. 

Somehow, that wasn’t what he’d expected. “No, Richie. No, it's not bad.” Richie sniffed, tears threatening to fall from his eyes. Eddie kissed him slowly, almost lazily. Taking that as his only chance that night, Richie brought his hands up into Eddie's shirt and across the muscles of his back. They fell quickly into their usual rhythm. 

Quickly, they started needing more. More contact, more of each other, more everything. Richie drew back, overwhelmed. He felt drunk, almost. Drunk on Eddie. They needed to stop before he went way too far. As if from nowhere, he started to sob, burying himself into the crook of Eddie’s neck.

Eddie rubbed small circles on his back. "Calm down." He shushed him a little and cooed, rocking him back and forth. "Hey, talk to me."

When he was finally able to form a sentence, his voice came out small. "I need you to know that I have been strictly and solely into you since we were like 12." He took a deep breath and just looked at him. "This was never just a let's kiss sometimes type of thing for me. And I need to tell you that now because I can feel this bond or whatever getting stronger." He swallowed and ran his hand up slowly to rest on Eddie’s neck. He knew that Eddie had been worried that he wasn’t in it. He knew that his fear of what everyone else might say had hurt him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell people. He’d have shouted it from the top of the standpipe. He’d have ran through the halls of the schools in a t-shirt proudly proclaiming that Eddie Kaspbrak had kissed him. But he knew how people in Derry reacted to things that they didn’t understand and that was enough to, at the very least, give him pause. “And I need you to know that, for me, it was there before. Whatever happens from here on out, I'm letting it happen.” 

Eddie smiled, and brushed his thumb beneath Richie’s eye, wiping away the tears. “I have wanted to be with you since…” He stopped and tried to remember exactly when he’d realized it. He couldn’t. It had always been there, in some form or another. “I can't even tell you how long. I don’t remember a time where it wasn’t you.” He shook his head and kissed him again, very gently. “I know it's stupid and we're so young but from the time I started imagining spending my life with someone, it's been you. It's always you, Richie.”

As the tears started to fall harder once more, Richie started to laugh at himself. It was ridiculous. Of all the times for the rush of emotions from the past few days to kick in, why 2 am? “Fuck. Okay,” he tried to gather himself and attempted to move his arm out from under Eddie. ‘Can I-” Eddie laughed and lifted up for him. Then, he placed his hands on either side of Eddies face, kissed him, then sprang out of bed, grabbed his glasses and moved around to Eddie’s side of the bed- realizing for the first time how bizarre it was to think that now, wherever they were, his bed would always be their bed. There was so much to get used to and they hadn’t even been… Maybe the therapist was right. Maybe they should have come up with a word for what they were to one another. “God, I want to take you out on a date but that feels stupid like…” He paced around the room, and then gestured at the clock as though it had personally offended him.

Propped up on his elbows, Eddie thought it over for a moment. It wasn’t like they could really go anywhere or do anything. Even if it wasn’t 2 am, they were in a hospital. Then, it hit him. “Steal us a couple of the teeny, tiny cans of soda from the nurse's station. We'll tell people you took me out for coffee.”

“Okay,” Richie said, beaming as he yanked Eddie to follow him.

Eddie let out a squeak of a laugh. “Oh. Oh, we're doing this now. Okay,” he babbled as he was led off toward the nurse’s station. Skidding through the halls in his socks, it felt like a scene from a ridiculous teen rom com. Like there should have been a synthpop soundtrack playing with hazy cuts of them running together through the years and laughing together interspliced with what they were doing. Critics would have called it insightful and a self-aware commentary on young love at the end of the 20th century. 

They came crashing to a halt at the corner of the visitor’s lounge. “Stay here a minute.”

It was easy for him to do as he was told. Richie strode up to the desk and confidently spoke to the nurse behind the counter. He watched as he leaned forward, then pointed back to where Eddie was hiding. They laughed together and the nurse got up from the desk and retreated into the small room off the rounded station with all of the monitors and files. Before long, a cherry cola, a rootbeer, and two packs of barbecue chips appeared in Richie’s hand and the nurse waved at Eddie from afar. After one last hushed conversation, Richie returned and grabbed his hand again. “Come on. Follow me.”

The boys raced through the halls again, shushing each other every time they tried to speak. Eventually, Richie appeared to find what he was looking for and tugged Eddie into an unmarked stairwell. “Richie, where are we-”

“Sh! Do you want to get caught?” he asked, pulling him up 3 floors as quickly as he could. He looked at the door, there was a good chance they could get locked out. He popped it open and saw a single cinder block. Clearly, someone else had done this before. He placed it at the edge of the frame, then ushered Eddie out into the clear night.

“What are we-” Eddie looked around and realized that it wasn’t just the roof that they were on. It was the god damned helipad. “Are we even allowed up here?”

Richie laughed then sat on the center of the big blue H, crossing his feet and gesturing for Eddie to join him. “It's not a trauma center anymore, the helipad is out of commission. No one comes up here,” he assured.

“How do you know that?” Eddie asked, as though it wasn’t obvious that the nurse had told him just moments before.

Playing into the coy dialogue, he winked and reached a hand out to Eddie. “I have my sources.” 

Eddie rocked back on his feet a little, testing the limits of how long he could go without touching Richie. Already, he was feeling antsy. He peered out over the ledge and watched the water. He could just about make out the lines of Derry’s main street and to the edge, the barrens. Just on the other side lay Mike’s grandfather’s farm. Their whole world laid out in front of him. “It's a beautiful view.”

Richie wasn’t much interested in the town. He was, however, interested in the boy before him. “Yeah, it is,” he said dreamily. 

“Sap,” he laughed, skipping back to meet him. He dropped in between his legs and allowed himself to be wrapped in his arms. Richie pressed a chaste kiss to his temple.

They sat in comfortable silence, just watching the stars. “So, have you put any more thought into how we're gonna handle this?” Richie asked.

“Not really,” Eddie admitted. He rested back against him and sighed. “I'd gladly never have to deal with my mom again, but we both know that's not likely.” He thought back to the first conversation he’d had with his dad after his mother had been escorted out. “My dad said he would help buffer but he'd understand if we couldn't make it work there.”

“Well, let's try the weekly timeshare thing first. If it doesn't work,” he said, mentally cursing Sonia for the sheer fact that she made Eddie’s mood drop by just the suggestion of dealing with her, “we stay with my parents until we can figure out something more permanent.”

Eddie closed his eyes and smiled. “More permanent. It's so wild,” he said, rubbing his hands over Richie’s arms. 

With a nod, Richie agreed. He was still reeling himself. “Yeah. What are you gonna do with a whole lifetime of me?”

“I hadn’t even figured out what I was going to do with temporary you,” he laughed. He’d given it some thought, but he didn’t want to spook Richie off. He’d have waited forever, he thought, until they could tell people. Then, they’d talk about it.

That was a shock. “You hadn’t?” When Eddie shook his head, Richie maneuvered so that they could actually see each other. “Oh, I've had plans. This big old brain in here had plans for transitioning from making out in the clubhouse to dating to marriage to bonding, but I was too afraid you didn't want any of it.”

“I want all of it,” Eddie said assuredly. “Why do you think I kept asking when you were going to be ready to come out to your parents?” He couldn’t believe that Richie didn’t know if he was in. He wondered if there was something he had done to give him that impression. “I thought then, maybe, you'd actually want to date me.” He gave him a playful shove, then pushed him back to the ground, climbing on top of him. “So, tell me everything. Tell me how you were going to convince me.”

“Well, I was going to give it another 2 weeks of pushing us closer and closer to getting caught.” Eddie’s jaw dropped. He had no idea that that was what he was trying to do. That certainly explained the backseat of his car while they waited for Ben and Bill to finish their Literature Club meeting. “If we didn't actually get caught, I was going to- Don't laugh?” Eddie crossed his heart, then rested back on Richie’s lap. “I was probably going to cry to Stan until he found out how you felt,” he answered propping up onto his elbows.

True to his word, he didn’t laugh. Eddie leaned forward and kissed him gently. “That's so sweet. Pathetic,” he clarified, “but sweet.”

“That's me. Sweet and low-self-esteem,” he joked, taking Eddie’s hands in his. He tried to ignore the way his body was reacting to Eddie on top of him. Pushing the thoughts away, he looked up at the sky. “Anyway, so once I had secure intel that you felt the same…”

“Would you ever have just asked me?”

Richie winced. “God, no. That would have meant potentially having you leave or say no something.” That was completely out of the question.

He hoped it was okay to laugh by then because he couldn’t help it. “Do you know how hard I would have lied to Stan?” 

That was something he’d thought about. He’d made Eddie promise to keep whatever they were a secret. “That's why I would have sent him. He would have known either way. You lie to Bill and he'd never know because he doesn't know how to be anything less than noble. Stan, however, is a human bullshit detector.” He sat up and adjusted himself, trying to keep his burgeoning situation from arousing suspicion. He cleared his throat and continued. “Anyway, once I knew for sure, I'd have told you to meet me someplace. My usual plan was the clubhouse, but I'd also thought about convincing you to skip gym and go up into the stacks with me.”

Eyes wide, Eddie gaped. “The stacks? Honestly?” He would never have expected Richie to go in for that. It was such a quintessential Derry High experience, but he never in a million years thought it would be one of his experiences.  
  
They had talked about it before. The previous winter, while everyone else was out on dates, they were sharing things they were pretty sure they were never going to get to do that everyone else was doing. If either of them had been paying attention, they might have realized that it was a perfect opening to knock off the sad pining and start dating. Maybe if they had, or if they’d talked about that type of thing more frequently, they’d be in a better position at that time. 

Richie remembered the conversation well. He had a mind like a steel trap for a lot of things, most importantly, in his mind, Eddie. If there was an Eddie Kaspbrak category on Jeopardy, Richie would sweep the category with no contest. “Yep. Once we were alone, I'd have asked you on a date and to be my boyfriend and stuff.” He glanced up at Eddie who wore an unreadable expression. “I don't know. It sounded better in my head.” He looked away sadly.

“Hm.” Eddie considered it carefully. It sounded a lot like the next scene in that coming of age movie he was imagining them in on the way up here and he wanted to see that through. He smiled, then nodded, pulling Richie to his feet. “You should do that.”

“Do what?” he asked slowly. 

Waving around emphatically, he made a heavy-handed implication that he’d made up his mind. “Get me to sneak off somewhere alone with you on a date…” he said slowly, then added, “then ask me to be your boyfriend.”

“Get…”

Batting his eyes and releasing a put upon sigh, Eddie added, “Unless you don't want me to be your boyfriend?” He ran his hand up Richie’s chest and smiled at him.

“I- I kind of thought it was too late for that?” Richie said, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s middle. “I mean, socially speaking, you're my h-”

“Nope.” Eddie interrupted. “Not too late at all,” he assured. “In fact, I'd prefer if we tried to take this slow. I mean, as slow as we can manage. We obviously have to take into account the fact that we’re in this and so much of it’s out of our fucking hands but I’d like to believe that we have some say and I know that statistically speaking it’s much more likely that we’ll end up dry humping in the stairwell on the way back to our room, but I think it’s probably better that we try to have some self-control.” 

There he was.

Richie smiled as Eddie took an exaggerated breath. He hadn’t meant to say all of that in one breath, but it had happened. It almost felt like the bossy Eddie that he knew. “Okay. So, Eddie, I was thinking-”

“There's a shock,” Eddie snarked, no real malice behind it.

“I like what we have going on here. I like the you part of the equation more.” He waved his hand up and down before pulling Eddie in. “I was wondering if, maybe, you would want to be my boyfriend?”

“Let me think…” Eddie said, hemming and hawing in a distinctly over the top fashion. “Of course.” 

Richie breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.” Then, it hit him. Eddie had said yes. He could have fought it. He could have refused any sort of a label, especially since there was still no way to know what their bond would turn out to be. “Wait, really?” He needed to be sure.

“Of course,” he laughed, leaning in for a kiss.

Pulling back, Richie could hardly do anything past stare. “Really?” He gripped Eddie’s forearms tightly, taking in as much of him as he could.

Eddie didn’t understand his response. “What did you think? I was gonna tell you to ask me and then say no? I thought it was obvious-” He looked up at his boyfriend- boyfriendboyfriendboyfriendRichieTozierismyboyfriend, his mind echoed excitedly- and saw that there were tears in his eyes again. “Hey. Hey, what's the matter?” he cooed, digging his hands into the side of his t-shirt and tugging at him.

“Nothing! Nothing,” he sniffed, laughing at himself. “I'm just really happy. And I'm relieved that you're not mad or disappointed or that you don't feel trapped-

With a smile, Eddie shook his head. “Richie, you drive me crazy in every conceivable way.” He noted his boyfriend’s- boyfriendboyfriendboyfriend- quirked eyebrow and the quick shift in his glance between his eyes and his crotch and sighed, “Even those ways, yes.” When Richie laughed and pulled him into a hug, he hugged back tighter, as if to prove a point. “Am I going to have to remind you of that daily?”

Shifting his head back and forth, Richie tossed the idea around. “That would be nice, yes,” he stated.

“Fine,” Eddie groaned. He’d never imagined that Richie would be the type to need constant affirmation, but if that was the case he was more than happy to sing his praises as loudly as the choir from the Gospel Church on Neibolt. “I want this with you, bond or no bond.”

Eventually, after finally admitting that it was too cold to be sitting on the roof in pajamas, the boys went inside and fell asleep. They would likely be going home the next day, so they wanted to get some sleep before people started poking and prodding at them for discharge paperwork. 

As it came to pass, it wasn’t the next day. Or the following. There were a few more tests and the insistence that they remain on observation. But, on the last day, by noon, they each had folders of instructions and pamphlets and forms that rivaled most of their schoolwork. It wasn’t until much later in the afternoon that Dr. Boniface made his way in to say goodbye. “Alright, boys. No offense, but I'm hoping to never see you again,” he said kindly, sitting on the foot of the bed.

“Agreed,” Eddie said, relieved that there were no follow-ups scheduled. They were good to go and enjoy their lives as a newly bonded couple- whatever that entailed.

The doctor eyed them suspiciously. “Any last questions?”

“Nope.”

With a shake of his head, Richie added his own, “No, I don't think so.” He sneaked his arm around the small of Eddie’s back and knocked his shoulder against him.

“This is gonna be your last chance with a captive audience,” he reminded the boys. He looked between them one more time. “C'mon Eddie, I'd have thought you'd have a whole notebook of questions. Nothing?” 

Eddie took a moment to wrack his brain. “I don't think so.” He glanced down at the papers, over at Richie, then shrugged. Feeling like he had to ask something, he landed on, “You said we're looking at at least a year of the constant, super-intense stuff, then it’ll come in waves after that, right?”

“Usually,” the doctor confirmed. “And, all things considered, from the best we can tell without much to go on, everything looks to be on track. Just remember what I said,” he added, tone oddly foreboding. “Be careful.”

Richie crinkled his nose at Eddie then rolled his eyes. “Will do, doc!” He gave a small, sarcastic salute. 

Dr. Boniface wished the boys well and headed out, leaving the boys to return to gathering up their belongings.

The Toziers arrived within minutes. Maggie wasted no time in herding them out, a peppy smile plastered on her face. “So, are you boys ready to go?” she asked. 

Richie looked at his mother for a moment, wondering what in the hell she was up to. Sure, she was generally a happy person, but she had a definite Cat-Who-Caught-The-Canary thing going for her. “Yeah,” he said, wondering if he was actually ready. 

On the other hand, Eddie was equally enthusiastic about getting out of there. “Definitely,” he said, darting from the bed and grabbing the duffel bag that held their pajamas and all of the other odds and ends they’d collected. “Let’s get out of here.”  
  
Falling in behind Richie, Went couldn’t help himself. “We made a couple of changes to the bridal suite,” he joked, earning a pointed glare from his son. They chatted happily all the way back through town. 

Despite the fact that, through Eddie’s adamance about seatbelts and car safety, the boys were just about as far apart as they could be in the backseat of Went’s old Lincoln, their hands seemed to have minds of their own. Without any real intention of doing so, their hands walked toward each other. Even as they walked up the front path, they walked hand in hand. Eddie made an attempt to lead them up the stairs to Richie’s room when, from a few steps behind, Went reminded them. “Ah- Downstairs.”

Richie looked at his parents, thoroughly confused. He shrugged, then led Eddie down the stairs. He wasn’t sure what to expect. 

What he wasn’t expecting, however, was for the basement to have been turned into a bedroom. Maggie watched as the boys explored the space. In truth, they hadn’t done much. The basement was completely finished out, a bathroom, a small bar area that only housed soft drinks, and a small living space, but went mostly unused, except for entertaining. Even that, over the years, had come to mean the Losers invading for a weekend here and there. “We saw how cramped you boys were on the hospital bed and knew that a twin wasn’t going to be practical. So, we went and got a queen only to then realize it wasn’t going to fit in your room,” she said, laughing as she realized just how absurd it was, but she needed her boys to know that they were safe. After Sonia’s little showing, she wouldn’t allow anything less. “After that,” she made a broad sweeping motion, signifying her rabbit hole.

Went followed along behind her and wrapped his wife in his arms, an exact mirror of his son’s positioning. “She got a little carried away,” he teased. 

“Thank you!” Richie said, a little awestruck by it all. He was so grateful to his parents. They were so over-the-top and he couldn’t imagine them any other way. He had never been so frustrated that he couldn’t hug his mother. 

Maggie smiled and clasped her hands together, leaning across the bar. “Now, Bill, Stan, and Mike did most of the heavy lifting. You’ll want to thank them, too,” she said, a gentle reminder not to isolate themselves. She turned to face Eddie and pointed toward a small cache by the foot of the bed; a backpack, a cinch gym bag, a duffel bag, and a shoebox. “Bill even went and got some of your stuff from your house.” 

Eddie hadn’t even noticed. He was touched. Everyone had gone to such great lengths to make sure that they were okay. It was, to say the least, overwhelming. 

“They've also got your missed schoolwork on the table. We just directed-”

“It's amazing,” he said, voice strained with tears. He walked toward her, then stopped, remembering the searing pain when Dr. Boniface touched Richie. “Thank you, Mrs.- Ma- Mom.” 

It took a lot to fluster Maggie Tozier. She was, after all, wife of Went and mother of Richie. Their full-time job descriptions were to make the most outrageous claims and over-the-top reactions. Still, hearing Eddie call her mom for the first time nearly knocked her off her feet. “You're so welcome, sweetheart.” She could almost feel her heart swell, realizing what a stumbling block that had been. Knowing what he’d been through, and some of the issues with his mother, she would have half expected him to never call her that. Maggie, she’d have expected someday. But, Mom, and so fast? She wondered idly if it had anything to do with the bond, but decided that, no, it didn’t. That was all Eddie. That young man was starting to realize that, maybe, with so much out of his control, suddenly, there was a trade. She chose to believe that because he deserved it and she was so proud of him. “So, pizza?” she asked, when she’d gathered her thoughts. “We've been living on takeout for days and I’m still not feeling-”

Carefully assessing his parents as they made their way up the stairs and turned into the kitchen, Richie couldn’t take his eyes off his boyfriend. He had stopped listening to the conversation a while back. But Eddie? Eddie was standing right there and they were, finally, alone again. He moved to him and lifted him off the ground, kissing him. Eddie wrapped his legs around his waist instinctively, smiling into the kiss. “What was that for?”

“Just wanted to,” Richie said, then kissed him again before tugging him up the stairs before his parents realized they weren’t there.


	5. right where discovery starts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Losers invade their happy bubble.

There’s a peace that washes over a person when they realize that they get to wake up in the arms of the person they love every day for the rest of their lives. The morning light shone in the small, high windows and Eddie was just starting to enjoy it. He rolled into Richie’s chest and just enjoyed the quiet.

The quiet didn’t last long. The doorbell rang, followed by quick footsteps. The basement door slammed open and two pairs of footsteps got closer. He closed his eyes and prepared for the blast. “You asshole!” Bev yelled, swiping the pillow out from under him and beating him with it. “Richie Tozier, wake up!” She stood up on the bed between them.

“Good morning, Angels,” Richie groaned.

Without thinking, Eddie and Ben responded, “Good Morning, Char-”

Bev pointed her finger at Eddie threateningly. “That's enough out of you!" She turned her energy toward Richie and hissed. "Explain!”

Eddie shook his head “You said-”

“I know what I said!” she shrieked. Smacking the pillow against Eddie's hip then Richie's. "What the fuck?"

Richie caught the pillow and whipped it toward the quiet,, broody intruder, assuming that would be safer.. "Ben, care to weigh in?" he asked.

"Nope. Too mad," he said, deflecting it readily.

"We. Were. Worried! Sick!" she said, punctuating each word with a smack to Richie’s arm.

"Ouch! Bev, stop!" he hissed, kicking out his foot to try and swipe her off the bed. The slapping didn’t hurt. He and Bev play fought almost as much as he and Eddie. It hadn’t even dawned on him that it would be an issue until the very first contact sent electric shocks down his arms. When she caught his unsocked foot, he could have cried. It was like stepping on hot coals and letting them course through his bloodstream.

Even Eddie felt that. "Jesus!" he yelped, pulling his foot up.

"Why did you jump? I hit him! You wait your turn, Eds," she said, sounding more like a mom than a friend.

As Eddie peeled off his sock, Ben's curiosity got the better of him. A bright red welt the size and shape of Bev's hand had formed. "Oh," he whispered as the realization hit him. "Oh, Bev, stop! Let Richie go!" He pulled her down off the bed and redirected her attention. "Look at their feet. They’re…"

Begrudgingly, she let her sight be pulled to where she'd been standing. "Bonded." She pulled her hand back, immediately realizing what she'd done. Immediately, regret coursed through her, then she realized that she couldn't have known and her rage seeped right back in! "You got BONDED AND DIDN’T INVITE US? WHAT THE FUCK RICHIE?" She said, refraining from calling him a motherfucker while his parents were just above them.

"There was nothing to invite!" Richie said, throwing his arms up in surrender. “We were making out in the clubhouse during that thunderstorm the other night and woke up in the hospital!"”

Ben, who’d gone to get folding chairs from the shelf under the steps, brought one for Bev and swung one open for himself, sitting on it backward. “Bill told us you were struck by lightning.” He glanced between his friends as Eddie sat up, resting his back against the wall.

That was a shock. He hadn’t expected Bill to have kept that secret. He'd have to remember to thank him. Still, he answered, “Probably because I asked him not to say anything, but he knew that you guys would never buy it being something easy if you guys weren’t allowed to visit." 

Arching an eyebrow and finally grabbing his glasses to better see the intruders, Richie added, "They were afraid that you’d do something irrational like hug us or hit us or try to grab one of our hands while were unconscious,"

Horrified, Bev reached out. "Unconscious? Richie-"

"That," Richie laughed, pointing at her outstretched hand as Ben intercepted it readily. "That’s exactly it, Bev. We needed to be a little less raw before you guys could come visit."

Eddie nodded. "And we wanted to explain in person."

"Yeah, this isn’t a phone call thing," Richie insisted.

The thought of it was still bizarre. Sure, half of their friends, the phone call was fine because they had context. But from nothing? "Can you imagine?" Eddie scoffed, pulling his knees into his chest as he idly trailed his fingers along Richie's arm. "‘Hey, so, surprise, I’m gay, Richie’s bi, we’re together, we were hooking up in the woods in a thunderstorm, and now we’re bonded. How was your weekend?’" he said.

Richie rocked onto his side, aware of the silent sniffling beside him. "You’re quiet over there, Ben."

His silence was a shield. As soon he tried to open his mouth, it turned into incoherent sobs. "I’m just so happy for you guys! I knew-" he hiccuped, gesturing between them with a dreamy smile. "You guys are-"

He moved to hug them and Richie swerved. This time, Bev caught her boyfriend. Eddie laughed, suggesting an alternative. "Hug Bev! Bev, hug him!" 

From the stairs, three new sets of footfalls pounded in. Stanley was first. "Dammit, Beverly, if you wake him up, so help me God!"

Mike called from behind, "They need to rest and we should be doing this rationally and waiting for both-"

Last, moving slower than the others, was Bill. "Ben, did you c-c-catch your girlfriend yet?" He couldn’t help but laugh. He'd known that that was going to be Bev's response, so there was no way he'd be able to stop it. Worse, he knew that he would be on the receiving end of her whole wrath.

She spun on her heel, quickly rounding on Bill. “You liar! You absolute-” She directed all of the energy she’d intended for Richie onto him. She yelled and pushed and play-hit and he took every blast. Mike stood dutifully by but certainly knew better than to get in the way. 

“Better them than us,” Richie laughed, finally sitting up himself and wrapping his arm up over his shoulders, and kissing his cheek. 

Ben stood up, adding his voice to the masses. Stan, on the other hand, was less interested in the chaos. He sat in the seat that had been intended for Beverly, then propped his feet up on the mattress beside Richie.

Rubbing gently over his cheek, Eddie added, “You said it.”

“I missed them,” Richie said, nodding in the general direction of the noise. 

Mike had stepped in, pulling Bev away from Bill, laughing as she laid into him about how sticking together must've meant nothing to him anymore. “I did, too,” Eddie agreed.

“I’d kill for a week vacation from them,” Stan grimaced, not even bothering to lift his head from the crossword puzzle book he’d snagged from Eddie’s bag from the hospital. “They’re exhausting.” He paused and thought about it for a while. “I missed you guys, though.”

Richie nudged a pillow across the bed with his foot and nudged against him. “Missed you too, Stan the Man.” 

With a smile, Eddie mimicked Richie’s gesture. “And thanks for figuring it out faster than anyone else. Apparently, if you’d let Bill try to separate us, it could have been worse.” He had shuddered when the doctor said that. They’d been in the hospital for too long as it was. The idea that it could have been longer was unreal. 

“It’s you guys. There wasn’t much else it could have been,” he said, a half-smile playing at his lips. Then, as quick as it came, it dropped. “So, are you guys okay with it? Do I have to worry about you killing each other?” 

“Apparently, you might,” Eddie laughed. The rest of the losers had apparently heard that part of the conversation, and Ben moved toward them curiously, sitting back in his chair. “No, seriously!”

Richie nodded, then looked over at him. “You know how Eddie felt it when Bev was hitting me?” he asked, knocking his foot against Eddie’s demonstratively. Stan’s eyes grew wide in shock. “Imagine how he’d feel if I actually got hurt,” he suggested, getting a gasp out of his friends, then, he played up the drama. “Or died.”

Bev hadn’t even thought about that. “Shit,” she hissed, sitting on her boyfriend’s lap.

“Why don’t they tell us this?” Mike asked as he came around to lean on the back of Stan’s chair.

Eddie laughed. That had been his question, too. “Who knows.” 

Truthfully, he supposed, it was good that his friends would have the chance to learn as he and Richie went. Even if he didn’t love the idea of being treated like a guinea pig. Still, they had the strongest support system out of any of the Losers. 3 out of 4 parents certainly wasn’t bad. 

They talked for the better part of the morning, sharing what they’d learned. They demonstrated the effects of separating and the reading of emotions, just as Dr. Boniface had done with them. 

Ever the one to get to the root of a question, Stan asked, “And what about the fucking like bunnies?”

Piggybacking off of him and glad not to be the one to have started the conversation, Bev added, “Yeah, is the sex any different? I’ve heard that it’s-”

Nearly swallowing his tongue, Eddie managed to answer, “We haven’t gotten to that yet, thank you very much.”

Richie stepped in. He knew that most of the Losers at least suspected that there had been feelings between the two of them. He wasn’t that obtuse. “We weren’t like…  _ together  _ together. We were very much in the ‘We’re making out daily but you don’t know that I have a crush on you and I think I know that you definitely don’t have a crush on me,’ stage,” he explained in a very Richie way that somehow they all understood.

Never the less, they weren’t happy with that answer. “You’re fucking kidding me,” Bev scoffed.

“You’re idiots,” Mike added, rolling his eyes and sidling up next to Bill, who knew and still shook his head in annoyance. 

Stan, however, was the one to blow his top. “Get the fuck out of here, Richie.” He knew it was unseemly, but he’d watched them do their awkward mating ritual far too long to deal with the blushing maiden crap now. “You wound up bonded and you’ve seriously never fucked? I thought you’d been-” Richie looked down at his and Eddie’s hands and instinctively started dragging his thumb back and forth over his boyfriend’s. That was when Stan saw it. “YOU HADN’T TOLD HIM?!”

Mouth opening and closing wordlessly a time or two, Richie whined, “I didn’t  _ tell  _ you!” He knew it sounded like a kindergartener. He couldn’t help that.

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t know that you’re in love with him!” Stan groaned, burying his face in his hands.

“Neither of us have-”

“Who said anything about-”

He rocked back in his chair and stared up at the beams. “Spare me. You’re about as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrel of gasoline.” He turned back to the rest of the Losers, as they made their own noises of disbelief. “You guys all knew, right?”

All, that is, except Bill who was too busy trying to work his hand into Mike’s without rousing suspicion. “Knew what?” he asked, realizing only then that there had been a question.

The Losers grumbled. “You’re lucky you’re pretty, baby,” Mike said quietly, snaking his arm around the small of Bill’s back and pressing a kiss into the curve of his jaw.

Bev twisted where she sat between Ben’s legs. “WHAT?!” 

Immediately, Bill recoiled, ducking under Stan’s chair and sticking his foot out in a distancing measure. All that did was give her a handle to drag him out by.

“Okay, that one, I knew,” Ben said, feeling a little better. Granted, he’d gotten an eyeful as opposed to just being told as would have been preferable, but he wasn’t going to be picky. At least it wasn’t Bev waking him up at the sweaty ass crack of dawn telling him they had to go kill one of their friends. At least everything had to be out in the open now.

Locking eyes with Mike across the room, Eddie mouthed “Thank you.” He nodded in response. It was easier, now. No more secrets.

The Losers stayed well into the afternoon, playing Clue and eating way more Chinese food than was really necessary. It was nice. It was cozy. Richie wondered to himself if this was what the rest of their life would look like; Eddie nestled comfortably against his chest, Bev with her feet in Ben’s lap, Bill and Mike knocking their knees against each other, Stan cross-legged on the floor beside him. Eventually, someone would come along with Stanley. She’d be smart and pretty and a good Jewish girl with her own life’s path that would somehow work its way to Stanley and they’d call each other sickeningly cute names and predict each other’s chess moves. He could see it all.

Even as the group dispersed, it was easy enough to see that everything would be fine. They’d had less than no reason to be worried about telling their friends about their feelings for each other. Of course, they were fine. They were Losers and Losers stick together.

When all was said and done and they’d walked the last of the Losers, Stanley, of course, home, asking they immediately returned to the basement. Eddie went to the sink in an effort to brush a stubborn popcorn kernel out of his molars. Richie watched from the desk, then moved in toward him, wrapping his arms around his middle. “I think we’re alone now,” he sang quietly into his ear.

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone around,” Eddie answered, nuzzling their heads against one another before leaning back over to spit the toothpaste and offending kernel out down the drain. He rinsed out one more time, then turned, resting on the edge of the vanity and pulling Richie toward him by the hips. He kissed him deeply then smiled up at him. “There were a million things he almost said, so many of them causing his stomach to knot in fear, but instead, he settled on a second kiss.

This time, the kiss was longer. Their positioning granted Eddie the odd chance to be right at Richie’s level. He pulled Richie in tight between his legs and deepened the kiss.

A slight gasp escaped Richie’s lips as they parted, making way for Eddie’s further intrusion. He dragged his fingernails through Eddie’s hair and smiled into the kiss. It was strange, for Richie, how not strange at all it was. A week before, this would have been unheard of. In his house, with his parents home, and Eddie just a breath away from him. He had to take a step back just to realize that it was real. He’d had that feeling all day, like at any moment he’d wake up with Eddie fawning over him because he’d actually fallen down the ladder into the clubhouse and knocked himself out. But the longer they stood there wrapped in each other, the more he could really start to let himself feel it. This was their life now.

Eddie’s hips moved against Richie, his body betraying his best attempts to keep his own cool. His hands mapped the boundary of his pants, resting along the crest of his ass. His legs wrapped around the back of Richie’s. His mind could only provide one word- Mine. Richie was his. He was Richie’s. That was more exciting than anything else. He could be as possessive and public about it as he wanted but he didn’t have to be. He loved it. He l… He pulled away, breathless and flushed. 

Immediately allowing the contact to be broken, Richie stumbled back to the wall for support as the blood went back to the areas it needed to. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, observing the nervous way in which Eddie had withdrawn.

“Talk about what?” he asked innocently.

Richie rolled his eyes. Apparently, it was going to take a while for Eddie to remember that they could feel each other’s emotions. “What Stanley said,” he answered, folding his arms around his middle. It could also have been that it had stuck in his head. That could have been part of it. 

Looking at the floor, Eddie shook his head. “We don’t have to.” There was a period of silence. 

Fucking Stanley. 

It wasn’t that easy. Most people dated for a while before they said it. Most people got the chance to explore their relationships and their feelings out in the open. He and Richie hadn’t even really had a chance to have a relationship. 

And, sure, they’d talked a little about it by then, but that doesn’t mean that they were ready to say  _ that _ . 

And, maybe he felt it.

But how was he supposed to know that? How was anyone supposed to know?

And, it didn’t seem fair to him that just because they were bonded he was supposed to just lose any of the inhibitions he’d had? He could feel them loosening. He felt more at ease. There was no denying that. 

But he was still 16. Richie was his first anything. Richie could very well be his only.

That thought stirred something deep inside him. He looked up at Richie who was still watching only him. 

“Does it bother you?” he asked. Richie looked down and smiled sadly. “That we haven’t? That I-”

“Eds, I haven’t said it either.” He tugged Eddie off the sink and moved out into the bedroom. “We’ve been together like a day. Bond or no bond, that’s quick.” He flopped down on the bed and stared across the room at him, still lingering by the bathroom door. “Things are going to progress quickly. You heard Dr. Boniface. It’s inevitable and, unfortunately, we won’t be in total control of it,” He reached his hand out for Eddie who came to his side and took it, sitting on the edge of the bed. Richie pressed a featherlight kiss onto Eddie’s knuckles. “That doesn’t mean that we have to snap to it before we know we're sure. I don’t want to rush.”

What he meant was that he didn’t want to rush Eddie. He’d felt it ages before. The earliest he could really remember thinking it was in an abstract way. He, Eddie, Bill, and Stan had snuck into the Capitol Theatre on his 10th birthday. They’d already seen Troll twice and the only other thing playing was Pretty In Pink. Sometime toward the end of the movie, he could remember sympathizing with Duckie while Bill and Stan kept on saying that if she wanted Blaine, what did it matter how Duckie felt about it. Eddie had snapped something about them both being good choices and they should leave it at that.

To think that 3 of them ever thought they were straight, he mused to himself in hindsight. 

Still, from where he sat, when Duckie finally reached a point that he couldn’t handle it, claiming he wasn’t “particularly concerned with whether or not you like me because I live to like you and I can’t like you anymore,” he had felt a strange twinge in his chest he’d never experienced before. The best friend’s tirade continued. “So when you’re feeling real low and dirty and your heart is splattered all over hell, don’t look to me to pump you back up cause maybe for the first time in your life I won’t be there.” And he’d been mad. Richie’d been mad at Molly Ringwald for making him feel that way. Because he understood.

Looking back on it now, it seemed melodramatic and a total overreaction, but it made sense. Ten-year-old Richie lived to like nine-year-old Eddie. Nothing had changed there.

Still, Eddie’s thoughts spun out of control. “I’m worried that I might say it one day, maybe sooner than either of us think, and you won’t believe me because of all the shit we don’t know about the bond.” There was something about the way everything happened that scared Eddie. It was all so fast and now, here they were, living together and practically married. He just wanted a moment to get himself together. But he would look at Richie and all of his thoughts would fly away in the desire to be nearer to him.

Richie tugged Eddie down to lay beside him. “I promise you that I will believe you if or when you say it if you believe me when I tell you that I’m probably going to say it first.” _Like now,_ his brain screamed, _tell him now._

“Yeah, because you’ll end up blurting it out in the middle of-”

Eddie stopped. His hand clamped down tight over his mouth. He hadn’t meant to say that. He didn’t need Richie to know that he’d thought about how it would happen. And he certainly didn’t need Richie to know that it had anything to do with anything sexual. He rolled over onto his stomach and buried his face in the pillow.

“In the middle of what?” Richie asked, wide eyes magnified further by his glasses. He tried to push Eddie onto his side and failed, so he pushed his face under him until they were occupying practically the same air. “In the middle of what, Eds? Please tell me what you were going to say.” He heard Eddie make a smothered whimper that was clearly supposed to be a no. Richie’s mind flooded with a million other ways he wanted to elicit noises just like that one. “I don’t think my poor heart can stand the suspense.” He rolled onto his back and managed to wrench one of Eddie’s hands out from under him, bringing it up to rest on his own chest. 

Eddie rolled onto his side and, despite his burning cheeks, managed to glare stone-faced at his boyfriend. They had both just expressed that they didn’t want to rush anything.

“During what sort of salacious acts are you picturing me blurting it out? Give me a rating?” Richie pouted before moving closer. Are we talking PG?” He pressed a chaste kiss to Eddie’s lips. Eddie shook his head. He quirked one eyebrow and kissed him again, this time parting his lips and taking Eddie’s lower lip between his before letting his tongue dart inside to bring his point home, asking “PG-13?” Eddie smiled and shook his head. His eyes flicked downward to the waistband of his pants. “R? NC-17?” Eddie chewed on his lower lip and averted his eyes. Richie was out of ratings. Unless... “SKINEMAX?!”

Eddie covered his face in his hands and rolled over so that his face was directly to the ceiling. That didn’t stop Richie from pestering. If that was the case, he needed to know just what exactly he’d pictured. Rising to his knees, he tugged at his boyfriend’s hands. “Oh, Eds, please, please, I’m begging you!” He climbed on top of him and bounced lightly. “Please? Pleeeeease!?”

With a deep breath, Eddie loosened his grip, allowing Richie to pin his arms over his head. While he’d intended to say “Fuck you, Trashmouth,” he’d just drawn out the F and gave in. “Ff-fine.” If he was going to do this, then fuck it. He was going to do it right. Richie wanted to hear it, didn’t he? “It would be so like you to end up saying it the first time I have my mouth around your-”

Richie’s mouth fell wide open. “That is all you needed to say.” He sucked in his lower lip and lowered himself to kiss him. “I know how good your mouth feels from the chest up. I can only imagine…”

A wicked gaze crossed Eddie’s dark brown eyes. He leaned up to kiss Richie again. Then, he rolled over, taking Richie with him, switching their positions. “Me on my knees in front of you?” he whispered, a daring smile twisting up his lips. “Your hands in my hair?”

“Fuck. Eds-” He groaned, fingers digging into Eddie’s ass as he knelt over him. “That’s not f-”

“You wanted to know, right?” He teased. He trailed his hands up Richie’s chest and then brushed past him before coming to rest on the bed beside him. “You wanted to know what I was thinking about. I was thinking about running my hands up your thighs,” he said, demonstrating. His eyes stayed fixed on the growing bulge at his groin. “Taking you out of your pants-”

Richie closed his eyes, then realized that that was probably not the best idea. “Okay,” he panted, “If you keep ta...alking like that, we're gonna have a problem.” He glanced down at himself and recognized the flush growing across his neck and chest. 

A moment passed, mere seconds, in which Eddie almost backed off. But he was never one to give in in a game of chicken. “You can take care of it. I don’t mind,” he said, voice steady, as he let his gaze travel up to Richie’s eyes. He brought one hand up to Richie’s face and stroked his jawline tenderly, mentally screaming that he wanted him to.

In just that look, Richie realized that he was serious. Still, even though he knew, on some level, too much of his blood was in the wrong head. “Is that…” he started, before restructuring his question. “Can I? That won't-?”

“I wanna watch,” Eddie assured. “See what you like so I know for later.”

Even that was a lot for Richie. He hadn’t expected that just hearing Eddie say that he wanted to see him in a sexual light would stir up such a feeling in him. “Then, will you-” He clipped his thought off before realizing that he still needed to ask for what he wanted. “Um... Can you keep talking?”

Eddie smiled. “You do like hearing me talk, don't you?” He laid on his side and pressed a kiss to Richie’s shoulder. “All this time, you just wanted to keep me talking.” 

And he did. He told him in startling detail the ways in which he’d imagined him, things he wanted to try, how gorgeous Richie looked, all hot and bothered. He chewed at his lip and took in each motion, each stroke. Richie liked it fast, it seemed. His pressure was light, which surprised Eddie. Still, the pattern of his breathing changed as he described the way he’d imagined backing him against the wall in the locker room at school. He’d described it and then dropped his voice low, noticing the change in his moans and the helpless thrusts into his own palm, adding, “that’s when you’d tell me you love me.”

The look on Richie’s face as he finally let go was something Eddie was going to keep tucked away for a very long time. There was a long silence as Eddie fully realized what had just happened.

Even as he came off his high, Richie couldn’t find it in himself to be embarrassed. “Yeah, I can, um-” he trailed off licking his lips with a laugh. “I can see that. Live, in living color.” He finally started to catch his breath and opened his eyes. In some deep layer of himself, he’d still expected that, when he opened his eyes, it would have been an elaborate wet dream and he’d have to deal with the heavy heart and ridiculous guilt. The guilt was absent. Eddie was not.

“Someday,” Eddie said, a little wistfully.

“Where did that come from?” Richie asked finally getting his wits about him. He turned his head to Eddie and, with his clean hand, pulled Eddie in for a kiss.

He smiled into it, then asked, “You don’t think this is the first time I’ve thought about giving you head, do you?”

“I could not begin to tell you what I think right now. Head empty,” he breathed, adding a bemused, “Fuck.” 

Eddie shook his head. “Richie, look at me,” he coaxed, turning his boyfriend’s face toward him. “I want you. I’ve only ever wanted you.” He wasn’t sure if that was a concern of Richie’s, but he felt the need to clarify it. It would have made sense, he supposed. 

His eyebrows furrowed leaving Richie’s realization on display. “You actually mean that,” he said. He’d never doubted it, he supposed, but it had never really crossed his mind.

“I actually do,” he assured and leaned in to kiss him once more, lingering this time in the comfort of knowing that they both really wanted it. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, tugging Richie out of bed and pushing him toward the shower. He tried to go out into their room and change the sheets but found himself lightheaded before he’d even found them, returning defeated. Richie’d been pretty self-contained, anyway. It’d be fine for the night.

Instead, he perched himself back on the vanity and watched through the mostly sheer shower curtain as the water washed over him. “You know, I’m impressed,” he said, handing Richie a towel when he finally stepped out.

Feeling a little more sure of himself in the realization that Eddie really did want him, he didn’t bother with modesty, hand drying himself then hanging the towel over the door before going out into their room for clean pajamas. “By what?” he asked.

Eddie scoffed. What was going to be a genuine compliment about opening up to him and letting Eddie focus solely on him died on his lips. In its wake came, “I was half expecting to be lecturing you about your hygiene, but I’ve got nothing,” he teased, folding his arms and shrugging his shoulders as he reached Richie and snapped the waistband of his plaid pajama bottoms lightly.

“You might want to brush your teeth again after all that dirty talk, though, babe,” he said, grabbing Eddie by the hips and pulling him in. He wouldn’t even have had to be looking to see the way Eddie reacted to that. 

Even Eddie felt it. He was used to Richie calling him anything besides his name. This was different. “Huh,” he mused. 

“What?” Richie asked. 

Eddie shook his head and tried to extract himself from Richie’s arms. “Nothing,” he lied. It was so not nothing.

Catching him by the hand and keeping him close, Richie took a stab in the dark. “You like me calling you babe?” When a blush tinged the apples of Eddie’s cheeks, Richie cooed, pulling him into a hug. “That’s so cute, Eds.” Again, a happy little jolt from Eddie. “OH! I knew it!” He’d always known that he liked that one. He never bitched about any of their other friends saying it, so it was clearly not that big of a problem. He went through to his next experiment. “Oh, Spaghetti, my favorite dish.” Eddie half-glared at him and Richie definitely picked up what Eddie was putting down. “Okay, I guess you really don’t like that one as much. Boyfriend,” he said with a smile. That was a good one. “Lover.” Eh. He’d put that in the maybe column. There was no reaction at all from Eddie and that was the one thing he had always wanted out of anything he did. He had one last one to try: “Husband.” Suddenly, it was like Eddie was housing an entire hangar of fireworks that had been set off at once. “Yeah, that one feels right for me, too,” Richie said softly, tugging him into a kiss.

The rest of their evening was quiet. Eddie showered, too. They went upstairs to have dinner with Richie’s parents, then came back downstairs to work through their final review packets. They were lucky it was the end of the school year and they had both been approved to do the homework, take the final and be done with the 11th Grade. 

When they finally turned in for the night, they were quiet. Even though the day hadn’t been busy by any means, it had certainly been tiring. Eddie reveled in the silence, tucked up against Richie’s right side.

Lost in his own thought, Richie still couldn’t wrap his mind around Eddie being right there with him. More than that, he couldn’t help but feel bad. He wanted “Do you-” he started, then decided against it. He tried a different angle. “Earlier was-” That wasn’t it either. He just couldn’t manage to figure out what he wanted to ask. Finally, he settled on, “Is there something I can do for you? You didn't-”

Though he understood the impulse, Eddie had to cut him off. Reciprocity wasn’t necessary. “You know I don't do that much. I just…” he gave Richie a sleepy smile and brushed his fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck lazily. “wanted to. You know,” he shrugged, then buried his face. 

“Babe, you just made me come strictly with the sound of your voice,” Richie said, sweeping the fingers of his left hand over Eddie’s hip. “We're going to have to get better about actually talking about this.”

Eddie whined. “Yeah, but you have practice. You-”

“Practice? What are you-” Richie asked, stunned. He couldn’t for the life of him figure it out, then it hit him. He'd heard himself joking about his friends being virgins and all of the dick jokes came reigning down on him. “You actually bought that? You think I've-” Eddie looked down, avoiding Richie’s starkly amused reaction. “With who?” he chirped. 

He buried his face in Richie’s shoulder, gripping him a little tighter. “I don't know,” he winced, realizing only then how stupid his idea sounded.

Richie shifted a touch, then guided Eddie to look at him. “No, Eds,” he assured, “This is all as new for me as it is for you.”

“But you said-” Eddie stammered, dropping his contained demeanor. “You've always made fun of the rest of us for being virgins!”

“Do you really, honestly think, at the ripe old age of 13, while joking about fucking your mom and being with you guys constantly, I was actually having sex?” It only took one quick glance at Eddie to realize that he did. “With who?” he knew it was a bizarre thing to be stuck on, but he had a wicked curiosity.

Eddie was suddenly ashamed of himself. Still, it felt like a fair assessment. He had confidence and that smile and he knew what attention from Richie felt like so he figured that anyone would have realized that. People would have been stupid to turn him down. "I don't know," he groaned. Richie moved to interrupt and he added a stressed, "I don't know, okay? I just- I thought… I saw the way- and I thought maybe- You and Stan?" 

Once he had stammered through it, he realized how stupid it sounded. Richie, however, lost it. He laughed loudly, uncontrollably, and riotously "Stop laughing," he griped. When it became abundantly clear that that wasn't happening, he added, "Stop laughing!" He tried to keep a straight face himself, but couldn't. It was its own brand of relief, really, that Richie thought it was so absurd. 

"I can't," he said, rocking toward Eddie, who gave him a light shove. "I can't! It's too-"

"Richie…" he whined.

"You thought-" he pointed between himself and the direction where, diagonally across the street, sat the Uris residence, "and Stan-" He tried to finish his sentence. He really did. But it was too much. He couldn’t even suggest it. Bill, he'd have understood. Even Beverly. 

But Stan? 

Stan was the closest thing he had to a brother. That was, undoubtedly, the furthest from his mind.

To Eddie, though, it seemed obvious. Stan was good-looking and smart and loved Richie. It wouldn’t have surprised him.. "He always rolled his eyes. It seemed like…"  _ Like he reacted the same way I do. And God, do I- _ "I don't know…"

"Because he knows I'm full of shit!" he managed to choke through a laugh. "I told you, Stan always fucking knows.. Oh God, I just…" Shaking his head, he tried again to come up with any way that anyone could ever have thought he had feelings for anyone but Eddie. "That's priceless."

"Shut up," Eddie said, laughing through his attempt to push him off the bed.

A devious smile flashed over Richie’s face. "Make me."

Pushing Richie flat onto his back, Eddie rolled on top of him. He kissed him ferociously. Lowering himself against Richie, he grabbed him by the wrists.

All at once, the room seemed to swim and Richie found himself in a memory. The clubhouse in a storm a week earlier. . "Make me," Richie nearly growled. Eddie pushed him backward, kissing him and sliding his patterned Hawaiian shirt off, tossing it aside with no regard for its landing. He guided them toward the hammock, let Richie flop in, then lowered himself on top of him carefully. 

Or so he thought. 

In practice, though, it was much more akin to a stage dive, sending the hammock twisting over like his father's Rolodex. Once they landed on the ground, Richie now on top, he’d pushed Eddie’s bangs back and said "I'm falling for ya, Eds."

"Very funny, asshole," he snarked, struggling against him. "Okay, you've had your fun, now let me up." Richie didn’t budge, instead breathing very slowly as the realization sank in. "Dude, I swear to God if you don’t let me up and you rebroke my arm I'm gonna kick your ass so hard you'll be picking sock lint out of your teeth. Let me up," he said, smacking Richie hard on the ass. "Earth to Trashmouth! I'd prefer that we got off the floor so that we can get back to the making out already in progress." He reached one hand up and stroked the side of his face. "Rich, you in there?"

Richie shook his head, clearing out the dust. "Yeah, sorry," he said, sitting back on his heels and letting Eddie sit partway up. "I just, I think I am, though," he said, a goofy smile playing at the edges of his mouth. "Falling for you. I just... I can see us doing stupid shit like this for the rest of our lives. Being totally and grossly in love and our kids being totally embarrassed by us-"

"Richie, did you hit your head? Where did this-"

"No, I just… I love you. I want to be with you. I don’t-" His mouth hung wide as he struggled for the words. "I think you're the person I'm supposed to spend my life with."

To say that he was shocked, even before the lightning would have been an understatement. He’d expected to have to pull the words out of Richie someday. But he felt it, too. It was more than clear to him. There was no other option for him. It was Richie. It was always Richie. Eddie smiled and leaned up to kiss him. "I love you, too," he admitted. “More than you could possibly know.”

Then, the world went blue, white, then black. Nothing. That had to have been it. Between the energy of their dalliance, the comfort and familiarity of their laughing and teasing, and the raw emotion of their confessions, it certainly seemed like a recipe for bonding to him. 

Richie went to pull back from the kiss, but Eddie already had. His eyes were wide. For a good while, they just stared at each other in shock. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter is late again, but I should be a little better off time-wise now. I had a bunch of personal stuff last week and I just couldn't focus for shit to finish up this weekend.


	6. i knew what i was there for and i wrapped you up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After remembering what was happening when their bond forged, the boys are faced with a particularly stressful afternoon.

It took a long time for Richie to finally get his bearings together. They’d admitted they loved each other. The world hadn’t exactly come crashing down, either. Sure, it wasn’t what they’d expected, but it wasn’t the worst it could have been. 

When he finally found his words, he said quietly, “Huh. That was-”

At the same time, Eddie was working through it himself. “So, we-”

Richie gave a small shrug and furrowed his brows. “Do you want to-” he spluttered over what to end the sentence with: talk about it seemed obvious, go back to the kissing was favorable, even go to sleep was on the list.

Before he could, though, Eddie blurted out a quick, “Nope.” He didn’t much want to anything, as it happened. He did, however, want Richie off of him- he didn’t, really, but he did. He just needed a second. He felt his heart rate starting to elevate. It was only anxiety, he knew, but he still instinctively reached for the inhaler that no longer lived in his pocket, then tried to shove Richie off.

Unsure of what to do, Richie asked quietly, “Are you-”

“I'm sure.” Eddie tapped Richie on the hip, trying to signal him to get off which, luckily, he understood. 

Still, he sat quietly on the bed and watched as Eddie got up to pace. “What if I do?” he suggested, looking down at the floor between his feet.

Eddie stopped, studying the dejected look on Richie’s face. “Can we take a minute? I just-” he spun around on his heel, then spotted the bathroom. “I need to-”

Nodding, Richie got up to meet him. “Okay.”

His mouth dropped open as he struggled to find the words. He moved toward the bathroom, then grabbed the door. “I'm sorry-”

“It's okay,” Richie assured, then sat on the floor. “I'm gonna sit right by the door, okay?” He knew that closed doors made him feel like his brain had been replaced with scrambled eggs, so he wanted to be as close as possible. He looked up at him with a sad smile. “Just, like, knock or something before you come back-”

Eddie nodded, bent down and kissed him gently, then shut the door. He stared at himself in the bathroom mirror and rocked forward. Turning on the taps, he splashed cool water up onto his face. “Falling for me, he said,” Eddie murmured to himself. He pressed hard against the edge of the sink and rested his head on his arms. “Want to marry you someday.”

And he sobbed. Fat, hot tears rolled down his cheeks. He had been so scared all week that he was going to have to reconcile how he felt about Richie before the bond with whatever direction the bond was going to lead. But they had both said that they loved each other. 

The therapist at the hospital had said that the more they were able to explore their relationship as though the bond wasn’t there, the better their odds were at narrowing it down. Dr. Boniface had said that if they could figure out exactly what they were doing when the bond enacted, it would better explain. He understood now why. 

All he wanted was on the other side of that door. 

It was a lot. It was really a fucking lot. But at the same time, it was nice. They weren’t really ready for it yet, he’d have said if he’d been asked, but the way his thoughts kept circling back to  _ Richie Said He Loves Me,  _ it didn’t feel so bad. As a matter of fact.

It felt amazing.

Someday came quicker than he’d imagined. But the more he thought about it, there was no way he’d ever have changed it. He was Richie’s, body and soul. It was all his.

Suddenly, he realized just how stupid it was to be so thrown. He’d already had a week. Sure, it was still weird. But he and Richie were bonded. He knew what he felt now.

At the moment, that was dizzy. He closed the taps, dried his face, took a deep breath, swung the door open, and said, “Why am I freaking out? We've addressed this!”

Simultaneously, Richie tumbled backward, landing on Eddie’s feet. “Had to make it literal again, didn't you?” he scoffed, before humming a familiar “Falling, yes I am falling…”

“Sorry,” he whimpered, rubbing at his shoulder as he knelt by Richie. “Ow. Oh, God, I'm sorry.” He pushed him into a seated position, and kissed his neck, rubbing at Richie’s shoulder which was, likely, going to bruise. “But, why? Why am I like this? We're m- bonded. You're my h-boyfriend. We- I-” He thought halfheartedly about the conversation they’d had on the hospital’s rooftop. Maybe they’d have to think about more than boyfriends soon because looking at him right now, he had to fight to come up with the easier, beginner words. 

Richie ran his hand over Eddie’s arm slowly, tickling the hairs that were starting to really show. “Babe, I don't know why you're freaking out either, but-” he said, tugging him close. He could sense his distraction and turned to him, tilting his chin up to face him. “Hey, Eddie, listen. This is important information for us but-” he shrugged and knocked their shoulders together fondly, jarring Eddie into smiling himself. “But it doesn't have to mean anything. I said I was falling for you. I said I could see myself marrying you someday. I said I love you.” Eddie nodded and took a deep breath as Richie raked his fingers through his hair. “That’s all true. And it’s comforting, for me.” 

As he spoke, he thought back on the memory that had been stuck in his mind the whole time. He’d woken up the morning they met at the clubhouse, hot and bothered from a nice dream, then decided to himself that that was the day. Come hell or high water, he was going to tell Eddie. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t know how he felt. “I knew that I went down into the clubhouse meaning to tell you that. Did I expect this?” he asked with a dry laugh as Eddie shook his head. “No, of course not! But,” he said, standing up and pulling Eddie to his feet. “I don’t take what we had discussed back.”

“We'll go with the flow,” Richie added, tugging Eddie back toward the bed in a flowy, zig-zagging pattern. “We can move at a glacial pace for all I care. We have all the time in the world and I just-” he gave a besotted sigh and stared after him. 

Eddie remained quiet as the time lapsed between them and, almost as though he’d been told that it would happen, resting against Richie’s chest, he began to calm. Eventually, unsure of how to proceed without some sort of input, Richie reached a point where he had to ask. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“I was just…” He didn’t know how to explain the rush of emotions he’d found himself swept in.. “Okay. I have been so fucking scared that it was going to be a friend or family type of bond.” Richie pursed his lips as though he meant to sound a sarcastic retort, but Eddie threw up his hands. “It happens. I know it does. My dad told me about his friend from college!” The story had hung like a dark cloud over every interaction he’d had with Richie since they started fooling around. “They were unintentionally bonded to someone for a long time and they-” he turned to face him, knocking their knees together and taking Richie’s hands in his, “they didn't feel the same and they got older and they both wound up marrying someone else and they tried to have a bonding and it wouldn't take because they didn't love the new partner.”

Brow furrowed sadly, Richie thought how sad that must be for everyone concerned. If Eddie only ever saw him as a brother or a friend, he couldn’t imagine how that would hurt. And if he married someone else, he thought he might die. And then, if Richie found someone he thought he could be happy with, went to marry them, to bond with them, and it didn’t take? God, he’d be humiliated. And he was enough of a softie, he knew, that the other person’s heartbreak would make it 10 times worse. It sounded horrible. He inched closer to Eddie and slid his hands up his forearms, then back down. 

“He doesn't know how things wound up,” Eddie shrugged, “but he knows that they're all still living close to one another and see each other often. I've been so scared of that,” he said. Richie nodded. That was certainly an understandable fear. “Like, he would never tell me about bonding to my mom, so it must have been run of the mill and boring, but this story, he told me.” he moved his hand, smiling as the gesture wasn’t quite as quick or crisp with the weight of Richie’s hand on his arm. He wouldn’t have had it any other way. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes again and he shook his head. “And, I don't have to worry about it anymore,” he laughed, moving closer and climbing into Richie’s lap. “It's you. It's…” He brought his lips to Richie’s, before finally allowing himself to pull back and look at Richie in wonderment. “God, it's you.”

Richie found himself lost in Eddie’s kiss. It was a better high than anything else he’d encountered. It would have been so easy for him to get carried away. His mouth and his hands, the way his legs hooked up over his, the weight of him hanging off of his shoulders. It was so good. It was as close to perfect as he could imagine. His whole body felt like it was singing. Still, he couldn’t wrap his mind around Eddie’s reaction. “So, let me get this straight…” he said, pulling away and resting on his palms. “You freaked out because you're relieved?”

“Yes,” Eddie answered hesitantly. He knew he couldn’t just let that lie.

Raising one eyebrow so that it peeked up over his glasses, Richie reiterated. “You freaked out because you don't have to freak out anymore?” Then, seeing the faint blush that washed over Eddie’s cheeks, standing out against the jade green paint of the walls, he cracked a smile.

Tilting his head, Eddie eyed him skeptically. “Aaand?” And Richie lost it. He dropped backward completely, laughing hysterically. Unsurprisingly, Eddie pouted. “What is so fucking amusing, asshole?”

Cackling, Richie tugged him down into a hug. “The fact that you can't even chill the fuck out for ten minutes. Like, stressing out is stress relief to you.”

Eddie relaxed on top of him startled by how comfortable it actually was. “It's cathartic,” he groaned. Still, Richie’s chest continued to heave for a long while after the conversation had been dropped. “God, it's not that serious,” he sighed.

“No, it's cute,” he cooed, kissing the top of his head. “You're cute.” Eddie smiled up at him. That, he could handle. “I have a really cute boyfriend. That's all,” Richie said, rocking them both onto their sides. 

That night, they fell asleep so closely entwined that if Maggie hadn’t known that Eddie was there when she stuck her head downstairs the next morning to check on them before she went to work, she’d have assumed that Richie was in bed alone. She touched her hand to her chest and lingered, just for a moment, watching her boys. She returned upstairs and stood for a moment in the kitchen and watched silently as Went read his morning paper over his cup of coffee.

He looked up at her and smiled. “Is there something I can do for my lovely wife this morning?” he asked. 

Maggie folded her arms and looked down at the tiny pink and blue flowers that littered the lower half of her deep purple dress. “I’m just really happy for them,” she said, a bittersweet tone to her voice. “Eddie has been so important to Richie forever and it would have killed me to watch them fight this. They seem good together.”

Looking back at his paper, Went’s expression wavered. “They do, don’t they?” He looked at a print of a sketch of the proposed layout for the years’ Canal Days festival but didn’t make any sense of it. “They’re good boys. They deserve it.”

She moved to him and tilted his chin up to her gently. “We go pretty good together, too,” she said, scrunching her nose before kissing him goodbye.

Went watched as she left, the same way he did every morning. Lately, their gazes lingered a little longer, the small touches were a bit more deliberate. Went and Richie were so much alike that it was difficult for Went not to get a little lost in his head. 

His first appointment of the day wasn’t until 10, so he basked in the luxury of staying home just a bit longer than normal. He went to the closet in his study and pulled out a dusty old shoebox. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he opened it, leafing through memories from what felt like a lifetime ago. A picture of two small boys sitting on the foot of the Paul Bunyan statue in the park. A folded yellowed note in sloppy chicken scratch handwriting. A pressed leaf with a gum wrapper ring were among the more prominent artifacts. He found himself fighting to keep his eyes dry. Where had the time gone?

By the time the first phone call of the day came through, Richie and Eddie were, luckily, getting up anyway. Richie answered it, stared at the receiver for a moment. It took him a moment to place the voice that was screaming at him as Sonia Kaspbrak. He rolled his eyes, making animated gestures specifically to make Eddie laugh. Eventually, he handed it over to Eddie with a sigh. She was already mid monologue when he finally pressed it to his ear. “Yep. Everything's good,” he said, rolling his eyes at Richie and climbing out of bed. “Yes, ma,” he nodded as a thousand less friendly remarks passed through his mind. That was when she hit him with the sucker punch. Hanging his head back and closing his eyes, he groaned, “Mhm. We'll be there.” He didn’t need to turn around and look at Richie to see the what-the-hell-are-you-getting-me-in-to face. He knew it was there. But it wasn’t really an option. “Give dad a hug from me. I love you guys, too,” he said. His mother made a manipulative comment he didn’t want or need to acknowledge, so he cut her off. “OK. Have a good day, ma.”

“Be where?” Richie asked hesitantly.

“My parents want to take us out for lunch tomorrow,” Eddie groaned, turning back to Richie and rolling his eyes. He pulled Richie out of bed and forced him toward the dresser. As happy as he would have been to spend another day in bed, he figured that they had to get out of the house someday. 

Richie had figured that was a close approximation of what she wanted. If that was all, he could probably handle it. “Oh. Okay,” he said, trying not to let himself worry about it when he didn’t have to. 

In truth, Richie was more than a little anxious about it. He wanted everything to go smoothly. He knew that Sonia was going to be the dealbreaker in the scenario. She’d never tried to hide her hatred for Richie or his parents and he just couldn’t understand it. The thing was, now, she stood to lose more and Richie could only hope that she knew that. Richie and Eddie were a package deal and she needed to either get over herself, get with the program, or get lost. Any of those suited him fine. 

“My mom wants to set ground rules for when we're there,” he said, taking one of Richie’s t-shirts from the drawer and handing it to him, knowing that that was the longest part of his decision-making process when it came to getting dressed. 

“Goody,” Richie teased, licking his lips and leaning against the dresser closing the drawer with his ass. “Do I get to-”

Eddie quickly turned to him and covered his mouth, repulsed by anywhere that sentence could have been going. Richie laughed under his hand and licked him, surprising himself and Eddie that that didn’t lead to the immediate retraction of his hand. “New rule, if you want to keep progressing toward having me anywhere near your dick,” he said, voice even and a slight smile on his face, “in theory or in practice, you will refrain from saying anything that might make a mental image of you and my mother in bed together. That is just about the biggest boner-killer I can think of. Okay?”

Pointing his gaze at his still concealed mouth, Richie gave an exaggerated mumble. When Eddie finally released him, he simply said, “Noted.” He looked down at the shirt in his hands, orange with a side profile of an old movie monster, and grabbed a pair of army green shorts to go with. Done. “Are you okay with the whole lunch thing?” he asked, watching Eddie dress beside him. 

He stopped to think about it for a moment. He could have said yes. But that would have been a lie. “No. Doesn't really matter does it?”

“I mean, I guess not,” Richie said, propping his head on his hands and leaning against the dresser. It was strange, he thought, how easily they cohabitated. He’d have expected to be bugging the shit out of Eddie by now. Sure, some of that might have had to do with the bond, but it didn’t really feel like it, not that he would know if it did. He was simply happy. Over the moon, unbelievably, glowing happy. He wasn’t going to let Sonia Kaspbrak, or anyone else for that matter, stand in the way of that. Realizing that, he added, “but if she's going to be the way she was, you don't have to put up with it. I'm not going to let her treat you like that anymore.” He moved to Eddie and wrapped him tightly in his arms. “You shouldn't, either.”

Eddie looked up at him and wondered just where exactly he’d pulled that one from. Sure, insightful things from Richie weren’t exactly uncommon, but it was still jarring. “I just don't want to alienate my dad either.”

Running his hand down Eddie’s arms, he shook his head and smiled. “I'm not saying cut them out. I'm saying you have options, now. I’m saying-” He sighed. He knew what he was saying, sort of, but he didn’t know how to phrase it without sounding like a cliche, especially as they were standing in his own parents’ basement. “I'm saying that if you're not ready, there's no harm in that.”

He thought it over for a while. Richie was, of course, right. He could admit that, due to the fact that they were still so young, they may have needed guidance and assistance, at least for a little while. But, it didn’t need to be from his parents. In fact, if his mother was going to try to take him away from Richie, or do something to harm either of them, it was no longer her right. In the eyes of Maine’s family legal system, his bond with Richie was a marriage and came with all of the rights and protections therein, including the fact that he was considered a legal adult. He didn’t have to listen to her. She didn’t have a say anymore. 

Eventually, he rested his cheek against Richie’s and sighed. “Let's just do it. Maybe it won't be so bad,” he said, though it was clear that even he didn’t believe it. 

Richie shrugged and kissed him on the top of the head before shoving him toward the cellar steps that went straight into the backyard. Knowing that, being Monday, their friends were occupied with school, they went around to each of their houses, leaving little notes addressed from the others, telling them to meet at the quarry. 

Bill had something important to tell Ben. Ben needed to borrow something from Stan. Stan wanted to check over an assignment with Mike. Mike wanted advice from Bev. Bev was still mad at Bill for keeping secrets and wanted to kick his ass. By the time they dropped the last note, they immediately headed out for the water to have some time to themselves before the rest of the Losers came crashing in on them.

Crashing in, they did. In her truest fashion, Beverly led the boys off the ledge and into the water for the summer’s first afternoon of swimming. The day turned quickly into night time and all too soon, they were headed home. 

Stan piled in the car with Richie and Eddie. It was nice, he thought, having everything play out the way it was supposed to. 

Maybe not supposed to… The bonding was a surprise, he had to admit.

But other than that, everyone was happy. They were almost done with their junior year, just one month left. It was going to be strange, potentially not having Richie or Eddie with them for Senior year, but it made sense. The first year of a bond, it was dangerous to be in crowds like that, not to mention the accommodations that would have to be made for them to attend all of their classes together and be able to sit so closely together as they would need to in order to keep their minds straight. And all of that was Bowers and his Gang of Idiots notwithstanding.

Still, they were okay. That was what mattered. Seeing two of his best friends unconscious was a jarring experience that he never wished to repeat. 

He kicked at the back of Eddie’s seat. "I'm glad you two are okay."

Richie looked at him in the rearview, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. "We love you, too, Staniel." 

"I take it back," he groaned. "Should have left you on the floor." Still, a slight smile crinkled the corner of his eyes. 

It felt strange- different, for Eddie, driving home that night. Richie’s hand felt comfortable in his. He’d never have imagined himself, just a few short days before, holding hands with Richie in front of their friends and not being a nag about Richie driving with one hand off the steering wheel in one fell swoop. It was such a small thing, but it felt huge. 

That was the thing- Everything felt huge. Every passing moment felt like a huge milestone. Everything was a first. Everything made his heart feel like it might explode. The mounting tension in every touch, in every glance, in every word seemed to want to kill him. If Richie’s car stereo was any judge,  _ what a heavenly way to die. _

The problem with pressure is that when it builds and builds and builds, something has to give.

The next morning, they headed out for a little cafe on Center Street to meet with the Kaspbraks. Eddie hadn’t slept much, opting instead to work on some of the makeup work and try to live in the feeling of Richie’s arms. By the time they made it, his mother appeared to be through her first cup of coffee. 

“Oh. I thought you'd be coming alone,” she said bitingly, hardly looking up.

“You knew he wouldn't,” Frank tsked. He smiled up at the boys, then gestured for them to sit on the opposite side of the booth. With a glance at his wife, he elbowed her in the side. “Sonia-” She shook her head and clenched her teeth, earning her nothing but 2 matching sets of eye rolls and a not-so-subtle glare. “How are you doing, boys? How's married life?”

Eddie smiled, willing himself to push through his mother’s attitude, then looked up at Richie, who answered excitedly. “Good. We're taking it slow,” he said, clasping his hand over Eddie's on the table and looking him over. “Figuring stuff out.”

“That's good,” he said encouragingly. Frank looked at the two boys with a bittersweet smile. “You have all the time in the world.”

Eddie tugged in a little closer to Richie in a little closer and nodded, a quiet "Yeah, we do" all he could bring himself to say. He felt himself withering under his mother's sneer.

Clearing his throat, Frank tried to redirect the conversation toward the upcoming week. "The house is quiet without you, I'll tell you that much," he said, looking down at his coffee cup. It hadn’t been something he had expected to miss. Now, the house seemed like it was caught in stasis. A delicate silence balanced over his every move as he tried to avoid his own wife. Her long-simmering rage had been starting to boil over and he couldn't figure out how to undo it. All he could hope was that Eddie being home would help.

The tension between them was palpable. Eddie did his best to shrink into the back of the booth. "I bet," he answered, hoping his voice didn't tremble too much.

"But, this weekend, right?" Frank asked, smiling. 

It was clear how much hope he'd hung on that and Eddie relaxed a little. He knew it should have made him more nervous, but he had to admit, he'd missed his dad. "Absolutely."

Frank turned his reaction to Richie. "And, it'll be nice to have you come in through the front door instead of Eddie’s window," he said, nearly causing the poor boys to faint. Richie’s jaw nearly came unhinged. "Relax, Richie," he said, getting a laugh out of his son.

"Why didn’t you say anything?" Eddie asked, stunned. He looked between his parents and tried to ignore the vein over his mother's left eye and the pulsing in her jaw. The crimson tinge to her face couldn't be overlooked. Instead of worrying about it, he wrapped his right leg behind Richie’s left, instinctively seeking out skin to skin contact.

With a shrug, Frank simply stated, "Because I don't mind."

"Speak for yourself," Sonia spat.

"I was," he countered sharply. As though he'd ever have deigned to speak for her. Still, he continued, "We always heard you boys talking and laughing. There was no way you were doing anything else."

"Frank!" she hissed, moving away from him, burying herself in the corner. 

Richie's eyes, aided by the magnification of his glasses grew to the size of dinner plates. All Eddie could do was smile, groaning a "Dad, stop!" as he buried himself in Richie’s shoulder.

"Besides, it meant you weren't making the moves on my w-"

Having had quite enough, Sonia turned to her husband seriously. "Stop that!" she snapped, all teeth bared. 

"Oh my God!" Richie laughed, trying desperately to hide behind Eddie. It was no use, though, since Eddie lowered his head to his folded arms, laughing hysterically, revealing the blush tinging Richie’s face all the way to his hairline. 

"No, Frank, I won't allow this," she insisted, 

"What is there to allow?" Frank asked, a twinge of disbelief to his voice. "It's in the past. They're bonded. It's time to move forward." He tried to place his hand over hers but she yanked it away.

"Move f-"

Lifting his head and shaking it sadly, Eddie tried to level with her "Ma, it's-"

"No, Eddie. I've been silent," she growled, pointing one pudgy finger at him, a practiced warning to keep his mouth shut. "I stayed away while that witch doctor lied to and for you for a week." Chewing at her lip slightly, she added, "He's lucky your father insists I don't press charges."

"He didn't lie, Mrs. K-"

Turning her anger toward Richie, she snapped, "And you stay out of this!"

A protective and defensive rage surged through Richie. He was not backing down this time. "No, I'm in this," he insisted, slotting his fingers tightly between Eddie’s. "I'm in this with Eddie and-"

"No, you are an unfortunate side effect of a tragic accident," she said, staring him down. "A delusional little boy who is-"

"I am in love with him. Even though we didn't choose this-"

"Hellbent on ruining my precious baby with his perversions. You'll never-"

"I would choose it over and over again, even if it means having this conversation with you over and over for the rest of my life!"

"Be half the man my son will be!"

They talked over one another, each word stronger and more pointed on wounding the other. They yelled and postures until the whole restaurant was staring. Eddie’s face burnt hot. He wouldn't let Richie fight this one for him anymore. He  wouldn't. "Mom, stop!"

Her eyes darted around the room. Sonia was unable to see her fault in the scene. Switching gears as the rest of the diners went back to their lunches. "Who do you think is going to take care of you? Him?" she whimpered. "Come-"

Jaw set firmly and shoulders squared, he faced her, voice low and even. "I don't need taking care of. But if it came down to it, yes. Richie is my husband and I'm not going to let you talk-"

"I will talk as much as I-"

Sensing her victim complex incoming, Eddie quickly tacked on the end of his sentence. "About him this way."

"Like," she concluded, jaws coming together with a click. "And you're so sick, baby. You need-"

Eddie’s face fell. He was not sick. For years, she'd insisted. His father had told him years ago about the medications being nonsense. She was afraid. He had done everything he could to suppress her, but every time he went away for work, Eddie had 3 new prescriptions. He had called the doctor, one day, asking what they were. Vitamins, supplements, and water mixed with camphor. In a smart assed attempt to dissuade her, he'd even had the pharmacist mix up a special concoction of B vitamins, Iron, Ashwagandha, Ginseng, Caffeine, Taurine, Sugar Syrup, and Pedialyte that he'd mixed with the flavor base they used for Amoxycillin as an "elixir" to soothe his "lethargy." Sonia had raved about the overnight changes in his disposition. 

In essence? She'd given her son a legal speedball twice a day, every day for 6 weeks.

Still, seeing the fear and heartbreak in his son’s eyes, he stepped in. "Sonia, stop it!" Frank insisted.

"Richie, let's go," Eddie said, tears welling in his eyes as he rose from the table. He tugged on Richie's hand, bringing him to the edge of the booth. He curved his arms around his middle, protectively and headed for the exit. 

"To be taken care of and protected," his mother continued, uncaring of his attempt at avoiding her. "Especially from wicked little-"

"Right behind you, babe," Richie assured, moving quickly to catch up with him. He placed one strong hand on the small of Eddie’s back possessively, ushering him forward.

"Heathens like him!" Sonia shouted after them. "You'll see! He's going to corrupt you, Eddie! And then he's going to leave!" Eddie's heart and feet stopped cold. Richie tightened his grip on Eddie’s shirt and leaned in closer. "This isn’t real! None of this is real. He's using you. You'll see!"

Taking a breath, Eddie shook his head slowly. He rested his shoulder against him for the briefest moment, needing the contact to calm him enough to leave. In a blinding strike of defiance, he reached up, kissed Richie deeply, blocking out the world and the stares of the lunch rush, and walked away. 

Richie raised his eyebrows in shock. He supposed kiss in public was another first he could check off his mental list. He turned around in time to see Sonia fuming and blew her a kiss from the tip of the middle finger of his right hand. 

Unbelievable. That was the only thing that Frank Kaspbrak could think. Their one and only son was happy and in love with someone who clearly loved him deeply and all his wife could do was cut open old wounds that had nothing to do with him. She chose that moment that could have been a nice, new leaf for all of them to wound everyone she was supposed to care about with a decades-old grudge. “Are you proud of yourself?” he asked, standing up himself. She nodded, a spiteful grin on her face. “Really?”

She folded her hands and stared down at her coffee cup. “He'll see,” she said, puffing her chest out and straightening her shoulders. “It's a fluke. Richie  _ will  _ leave him. Then, what?”

“They're bonded, Sonia,” Frank said, hanging his head with a sigh of disbelief as she dug the proverbial knife in deeper.

Instead of arguing, or even admitting why she had such a hatred for the Toziers, she harrumphed like a spoiled child being deprived of her favorite toy. That’s all her son, her Eddie-Bear was; a plaything. 

Frank flexed his hand in front of his face, blinking slowly. Of all the women in all the world, somehow, she was the one he’d chosen. “You're impossible. I don't even know who you are anymore.” He shook his head, disappointed in himself and pitying his poor son. He turned away and followed in his son’s footsteps, right out onto the street.

On the hood of Richie's car sat Eddie, his face pressed into Richie’s chest. Richie’s arms were wrapped tightly around him as he whispered something into his ear. As soon as he locked eyes with the older man, he kissed the top of his husband’s head and nodded toward the car, helping him down before moving to open the door for him. 

Sensing his chance fleeting, he called out, “Boys, wait.” He picked up his pace and managed to get to them before Eddie’d gotten into the car.

“Dad, don't,” he said, his words catching in his throat. “Don't stick up for her. Don't cover for her. Don't…” He covered his eyes before sliding his hand down to his mouth. He shook his head. It was so like him, he thought, to try to clean up his mother’s mess. But as usual, it was too late. The damage had been done. “Just don't bother.”

“She just needs… I don't know. Time, I guess,” he offered naively.

Sitting sideways in the passenger seat, he looked up at his father. “No, you know time's not what she needs, Dad.”

From behind him, Richie mumbled, “A mood stabilizer, maybe-”

“Richie…” Eddie groaned, shaking his head.

Frank grasped the top of the door and crouched down, eye level with his son. “Please, still come this weekend. I'll talk to her,” he said. He meant it. He foresaw a lot of talking in his immediate future. More accurately, a lot of yelling. It didn’t much matter. If it meant that they’d be able to make it work out that Eddie could come home, he’d deal with it over and over for the rest of time. “I miss you,” he said.

Eddie desperately wanted to hug his dad. “I miss you, too,” he said quietly, tears streaming down his face. 

Leaning over the center console, Richie rubbed at Eddie’s shoulder sympathetically. He looked at the older man, silently pleading that he let them leave. He just wanted to get Eddie out of there.

Before standing up, he added, “Richie, please don't take what Sonia said to heart. Okay? I know she's difficult. And, I know she's…” He looked at the ground, then decided against disparaging her more in front of the boys. He knew they could come up with their own. “Well. Just, don't.”

“I won't,” Richie assured. He’d known the Kaspbraks his whole life. Never, not once, had he experienced a kind word from Sonia. There was nothing she could say that would change the way that the thought of hurting Eddie twisted his stomach into knots or the way his mind was consumed with thoughts of him. Leaving wasn’t even a blip on his radar.

Frank nodded, a strange, pensive look on his face. “Good,” he said, nodding for Eddie to swing his feet in so he could shut the door. “You boys take care of each other,” he said, pounding the roof lightly before stepping back to allow Richie to drive off. Watching as the tail lights faded into pinpricks in the distance, he folded his arms over his chest protectively, lost in thought. He glanced back into the cafe only to see his wife picking at her breakfast, appearing pleased as punch with herself. He shook his head and decided that, maybe, it was best if he walked home, fidgeting with the keys on his belt as he walked.

The drive back was quiet for a while, but Richie couldn’t stop himself. “You okay?” he asked, sliding his right hand across to Eddie’s shoulder. He looked at him out of the corner of his eye, intentionally turning down a street he knew to be empty and largely unfrequented just so that he could drive slow and, even if he was distracted, it wouldn’t matter.

“Do you need to ask?” Eddie scoffed. He was obviously not okay. Richie wasn’t either. His mother was something else. He brought his left hand up to rub at Richie’s arm. 

It wasn’t fair, he thought. They were happy. Not just making the best of it. They were honest-to-god happy. Why couldn’t she be happy for them? And worse, what the fuck did she mean about Richie leaving. Richie hadn’t left his side for more than 8 hours in years. If her reasoning had something to do with his dad, he just didn’t understand it. And still, the fear was there. It had been since before they were bonded. Now, sure, it would be harder, but if he wanted to, Eddie was sure Richie could find a way to ditch him. 

And why wouldn’t he?

He deserved to be with someone whose family wasn’t going to make things harder. He deserved to be with someone who knew what they were doing. He deserved to be with someone who wouldn’t be dragging their feet about calling him their husband or admitting that they loved him. He deserved to be with someone brave. He deserved to be with someone better.

Unaware of the specifics of the hurricane happening inside Eddie’s head, Richie kept rubbing tight circles at his shoulder. “Me neither,” he agreed, letting the silence surround them once again. 

It was strange. They were both such exceedingly verbal people, but since their bonding, they were growing to be so in tune with one another that they found themselves needing fewer and fewer words. They could still talk and fight about everything and nothing, but the tough stuff, it just required less. Richie got it. 

Eventually, they reached a dead end in a part of town Richie hardly even recognized and turned around. He looked over at Eddie and gave him a look that very clearly meant that they were a little lost and he needed to get them home. “Can we stop and get something for your mom? Just as a thank you for not being my mom?” he asked, still moping as he pointed them back in the direction from which they’d come.

“Of course,” he said. “You know that’s not necessary, right,” he asked. It was a sweet gesture, but there was no need to butter Maggie up. She had always loved Eddie like her own. That was a thought. “Can you imagine if she was?” Richie snorted. “My mom and both of our dads so we’re mysteriously half brothers”

“Beep beep, Richie,” he groaned. He pressed a gentle kiss to the inside of Richie’s wrist, the most accessible part of him, for now. 

As the boys strode through the aisles of the tiny, and only, flower shop in Derry, Eddie’s gaze was caught by a chart on the language of flowers. Problem was, he couldn’t tell the difference between a marigold and a peony with a gun to his head, so the fact that there were no pictures made it difficult at best. His fingers hesitated over the words Lily of the Valley before searching for any indication that they had any at all. “Hey, Rich?” he said, moving from bucket to bucket before giving up.

"What's up, babe?" He asked rather loudly, holding their place in line as the florist answered another couple's questions about wedding flowers.

"I-" As soon as the thought formed, he realized it was stupid. He'd figure out another way to say it. "Forget it," he mumbled, brushing past a cluster of tiny white flowers before coming to stand beside him, hooking his thumb into the waistband of Richie’s jeans.

The shopkeeper was sweet and understanding of their practically nonexistent price point and worked with them to create a small bouquet of sunny carnations. They had charmed her with their story. She'd heard rumors about an unintentional bond in Derry but hadn't expected such happy, willing participants nor such polite, albeit high-spirited, boys.

She'd seen a lot of new bonds and engaged couples in her day, but there was something different about them. 

Richie and Eddie sat in the car for a while after they got home, enjoying the neutrality. As Richie stared at the house he'd grown up in, he wondered for just a moment if it would ever feel normal to walk in that door with Eddie. 

Since it certainly wasn’t going to happen that day, he urged himself out of the car and held a hand out to him. Together, they headed up the front steps and into the house. 

"Hey, how'd it go?" Maggie called from the kitchen. It was a fair question. Immediately, Eddie felt himself begin to tremble. More than that, the genuinely caring tone, set into starker contrast how awful his mother had been and he just put the flowers on the table, sniffling. Turning sharply, from the dishes, she saw how spent the kids were and felt her heart break again. "Hey! What happened?" The tears welling in Eddie’s eyes were the final straw. Her yellow, elbow-length rubber gloves clenched tightly around her scrub brush like a weapon, brandished specifically for whichever sorry sack of shit had made her kids cry.

Rubbing his thumb across his opposite hand, Eddie mustered up a quiet, "Thank you. For everything. You have been-" he thought over the ways everything could have crashed down around them over the past couple of weeks and swallowed down the lump in his throat. "You've both been so wonderful and I- I don't know what we would do without you. I know that everything's weird. And…" he looked down at the hand he hadn't even realized has joined his and gave a wet laugh. "Richie is so amazing and he wouldn’t be, if not for you. I just-" he looked up at her and smiled. "I'm so grateful to you guys."

Mother bear instincts kicking in, Maggie moved to hug her son-in-law and reached out. Then, she remembered- hugging hurts. "Oh-" She thought for a moment and remembered the way her mother had managed to hug her when she'd announced that she was pregnant with Richie and dashed into the living room, grabbing a blanket and throw pillow and returned. "I've got it!" She held the ends of the blanket in her gloved hands and held the pillow to her chest with her elbows. She wrapped the blanket around Eddie like a hairdresser's poncho and said, "Now, this isn't perfect, but tell me immediately if it starts to hurt," as she wrapped him tightly in her arms. 

They stood that way for about a minute. Eddie was astounded. All it took was a little determination and creativity to come up with a simple adjustment, just so that she could do what she needed to do as a mom without hurting them. That was it. 

"A little now," Eddie admitted eventually, surprised it had taken so long. Even still it was hardly akin to grabbing a too hot plate from the microwave. Nothing at all compared to his mother grabbing his shoulder or Bev grabbing Richie’s foot. 

Having watched the whole thing with tear-brimmed eyes, Richie's voice wavered as he asked, "Mom?" He reached his hands out reflexively. He couldn’t remember if he'd ever gone 3 days without a hug from his mom, let alone what was now edging toward 3 weeks. 

Without hesitation, she dashed to her son, repeating the process with him. "Richie," she whispered, rocking him back and forth. "Oh, my baby. My baby boy." She stroked the back of his head gently until he had to pull away, both of them with splotched, tear-stained faces.

From the doorway, Went had watched the whole thing unfold. "You understand, I'm contractually obligated to mock all three of you until the next millennium, correct?" he said gently when the moment had passed. All three laughed, wiping at their eyes. Still, he stole his wife's supplies and continued the love train, relieved to know that he could still hug his son. "What happened?" he asked when all was said and done.

"We were getting to that," Maggie said, folding her arms and leaning back against the counter. "Now, spill."

"We went to lunch with my parents," Eddie said quietly, looking down at his folded hands.

That explained it. He nodded and sat down at the kitchen table. “So, did you eat, or was everything too bitter and acidic for your taste?”

Maggie leveled a warning gaze on her husband. “Went…” 

“No, actually. We got out of there quick,” Eddie answered and brought his arms around his middle tightly.

Richie slid a little closer to his husband and wrapped his arm around the small of his back. “I'm not one for bile smoothies.” He rubbed his hand gently over Eddie’s arm.

With a sigh, Maggie knocked her head back against the fridge. “What did she say?” In truth, she wondered if it wasn’t better that she didn’t know. Still, it was necessary. If she was going to kill the woman, and she thought she might, she was going to need a little more information. 

“Nothing really. Just general nastiness and bullshit,” Richie said, looking down at his feet.

Shaking his head, Went said, “I'm sorry.” He knew too well what type of shitty, heartless words Sonia was capable of, having been on the receiving end of it more than once. Still, if it was just the normal stuff, it was manageable.

“No, don't,” Eddie answered. They had no reason to be sorry and he had no desire to have them feel sorry for him. No matter what it was, the only person he wanted to hear an apology from was his mother. He knew that would never happen, so he just wanted to forget it.

Meanwhile, Maggie studied her son. He was too quiet. If it was nothing, he’d be trying to make Eddie laugh and redirect the topic. She stood up a little straighter and moved toward him. “What did she say?”

Eddie was the one to answer first. “Her normal stuff. But-”

“She said I was gonna leave him,” Richie answered, caving under his mother’s glare. He shook his head and looked at Eddie out of the corner of his eye. “How stupid is that? Especially- oh! The other night, we remembered more about what happened in the clubhouse. I told him that I was falling for him and that I could see myself marrying him.”

Shocked at the sudden turn, Went looked up at his wife. “That's good,” he shrugged. It seemed a little like a given. In truth, he’d expected the boys to have had that conversation a decade before. 

“So, you're a little more sure that this is what you want now?” Maggie asked, as though there had really ever been another thought. 

“Yeah, it's scary, but at the same time…” Richie tightened his grip on Eddie and smiled at him.

Eddie looked right back, trying to come up with the right word. “Invigorating,” he offered. It was, he supposed. When he had read about bonds before, he’d always imagined it to be like you were constantly burning, on fire for the other person. Instead, it was like a breath of crisp, autumn air first thing in the morning. It was like being awake for the first time in his whole life. 

The word choice was perfect for Richie. He nodded and gave him a gentle shove. “Exactly! Like jumping into the quarry.”

“Like what?” his father laughed. Eddie nodded. That was a fair analogy, too.

On the opposite end of the response spectrum was Maggie. She stripped off one of her gloves and waved it at her son. “Richard Wentworth Tozier,” she grumbled moving toward him, lowering it on his bicep sharply. Richie laughed and took off toward the far corner of the room. “so help me God, if you-”

As his wife chased his son around the room, Went stood and addressed Eddie. “Don't let your mother get to you, son. “

“I'm not,” Eddie affirmed.

A strangely sad expression, one Eddie didn’t think he’d ever seen on anyone, settled over Went’s face. “Good,” he said, grabbing a dish towel from the counter and patting the boy on the shoulder with it. “Good.” He smiled at his son’s husband before turning his attention to the chase, whipping his son in the ass with the fabric. 

Richie yelped in protest, laughing all the way. He called out to Eddie for help, but it was free entertainment. Besides, as a voice in the back of his head mentioned, mopey Richie needed constant affection, so if they could wear him down just a little, it was likely to lead to a comfortable night for Eddie. 

Yeah, he was staying as far away from that as possible. 

True to form, the rest of the night was spent with the boys wrapped in each other’s arms, Eddie finally getting to be the big spoon. He petted Richie’s hair and sweetly affirmed his strength and humor and that jumping into the quarry wasn’t entirely reckless, even though he truly did think that it was. 

In a house a few streets away, when the phone rang just as he was sitting down to watch the evening news in his office, Frank could feel it. “Francis Kaspbrak, speaking,” he said in his usual singsong voice, despite the sinking in the pit of his stomach.

“So, your wife is a real-”

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You don't get to talk about my wife.” His voice was quiet. If Sonia overheard him, that would be the end of it. He’d had enough fighting for the day. “Whatever she is or isn’t has nothing to do with you.”

“Just… don't let her project other issues where they don't belong. Richie is-”

“He's not you. I know,” he said, his voice wavering.

Went exhaled sharply. Frank could hear the frustration in his voice and it stung. “Tell her that,” he said pointedly.

“You have to remember, though,” he said, staring at an old picture on his shelf, remembering the day it was taken in a wave of bittersweet nostalgia. “Eddie’s not me either. I survived. He-”

In the time it took for Frank’s voice to trail off, Went felt the gut-punch land. It wasn’t his fault. He had never wanted to hurt him. “I'm still…” He knew, no matter how much time passed, it would be the worst thing he had ever had to do. “I'm never going to stop being sorry.”

He knew it was a low blow, having fallen victim to more than a few of them himself in the past 24 hours. Still, every time he thought about Eddie lately, he found himself terrified of what the boy could be facing. “It was years ago. It's done,” he said, not really believing it himself.

“Frank-”

Instead of letting himself cry on the phone, Frank knocked back his gin and tonic and hung up the phone. Whatever it was could wait. He didn’t want to feel it anymore.


	7. the only heaven i'll be sent to

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Richie make their first trip back to the Kaspbraks.

It's a funny thing about being a parent. A father wants his son to learn all the things he knows, but not too fast. He wants to be needed. The first time Went held Richie in his arms, 21 inches and 6 pounds 11 ounces of pure joy, he knew that he would do anything to keep him safe. The older that goofy little boy got, the more he realized that he was just like him. 

And that thought terrified him.

He knew the hell he'd put his parents through. He knew the amount of stupid shit he'd done. He knew all of his mistakes. Watching him grow alongside Eddie, he could see how easily Richie could cause all the same hurt. And he couldn't bear it. 

After his phone call from Frank the night before, all of those worries came crashing down on him. 

He loved Frank like a brother. They’d practically been brothers. It had been the first instance of love he'd known. His father carried the weight of the entire Korean War on his shoulders until he died. It wasn’t until after that that his mother started to be the kind, doting woman Richie called Gamma. 

It was the first day of first grade and Frank offered to share half of his bologna sandwich with him because nobody had thought to pack anything for Went. He'd turned it down but the little boy had insisted. "My mom made Rice Pudding with cinnamon and raisins so I'll just have some of that if I'm hungry when I get home," he said, sliding the sandwich back toward him. "Come on. Ya can't think on a empty belly," he said wisely.

Apparently, as teachers would come to find, Went had a hard time thinking on a full belly if Frank was around. They were double trouble and partners in crime. Even into college.

But Went didn’t know. How could he? Frank had never said…

Even if he had, he didn't know if it would have made a difference. Bonds develop to their fullest potential. They take in whatever ways they're meant to. Frank was his family- by bond if not by blood. 

He couldn’t… If he could have loved him that way...

Still, one quiet night in early summer, he sits awake, troubled by things he could never have controlled. Fucking fate, man. Whoever was in charge of that shit needed a power check. Still, he decided that, if he had any chance of sleeping, he needed to chill out. He went to his dressed and grabbed a tightly rolled cigarette from a small box on Maggie’s dresser and headed for the backyard.

Richie woke with a start to the sound of steps in the kitchen and the backdoor opening and closing. That was new. Is that what his sneaking out always sounded like from the back of the house? If so, yikes. That was years of torture to apologize for. Still, he lay in bed quietly, trying to go back to sleep. 

Before long, wafting in the crack under the cellar door was a distinctly sharp, earthy scent. There was no reason for it, he thought, especially at this hour. He twisted up onto his elbow, fully awake. “Do you smell that?” he whispered, earning nothing but a whine from Eddie. “Go back to sleep,” he laughed and kissed him lightly on the temple. 

He walked toward the door and climbed the steps to find his father, sitting on the top step with a hand-rolled joint pinched between his fingers. Yeah, that had been the scent. Richie gaped, but he was already visible, so he swung it open wide. “And at what hour do you call this, Wentworth?” he said, pitching his voice up into a very distinct imitation of his grandmother, one of his first and, if he did say so himself, best voices. 

“Hey, kiddo,” Went answered, looking him over and deciding that it was probably best that he didn’t try to cover for himself. “What's-”

“What ever would Nancy Reagan say?” Richie teased, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the doorframe. 

Went brought the joint to his lips and took a long drag, holding it in before releasing it with a groan. “Fuck her. Prudish old bat.” 

Eyes wide in shock, Richie laughed out a hushed “Dad!” before closing the door over. He knew that closing it would make the distance worse, but he figured he could give half closed a shot, especially if it lessened the likelihood of a lecture from his husband. “Are you gonna share, then?”

Tenacity had always been one of his son’s strong suits. He’d admired that. He often wished he had more of it himself. “When'd you start smoking?” he asked, handing it over without a further question. Far be it from him to demonize his son for habits he’d had longer than Richie’d been so much as a twinkle in his eye. 

“When Stan realized it calmed his nerves and Bill realized it made his stutter better,” Richie shrugged. The honest answer was about a year prior, but he figured his father didn’t need to know that. 

“What does it do for you?” he asked.

Richie took a deep hit and handed it back to his father. “Amps the Ritalin,” he said. He always felt like his brain was in hyperdrive and, sometimes he just needed it to slow to a nice cruising speed. 

Nodding, Went said, “I never wanted to suggest it because, but I thought it might.” When he was a teenager, his friends had called him high-strung and he’d found that it mellowed him out. But, it was also the 60s and The Beatles were bringing psychedelic hash culture to the masses, so no one had even given it a second thought. Unfortunately for Richie, it was a different time.

“Yeah. Far as Eddie's concerned, though-” he pantomimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key.

In a faux-scandalized voice, he asked, “And what type of marriage is based around secrets?” He knew that the boys were struggling with calling it that, but Went had no-such qualms. Sometimes, when you’re in it, it’s hard to see what everyone else can. Everything was moving so quickly for the boys that it obviously made sense that they’d be hesitant to name something that was irreversible. Still, if one of them wasn’t in love with the other, they’d both know. If one of them wasn’t attracted to the other, they’d both know. It would be obvious. 

But Went couldn’t tell them that.   
  
If he told them that, it would be an entirely different discussion than the one he’d be intending. No, that was a hard pass.

Unaware of his father’s inner turmoil, Richie stammered, “It's not based around it.”

Went took another long drag. Richie thought that he might get a reprieve; Maybe they could just sit in silence and smoke. But that wasn’t going to happen. 

“Does he know that you love him?” his father asked, exhaling a cloud of smoke through his teeth, then passing it back to his son.

“Jesus, Dad,” he winced. “Does smoking make you clairvoyant?”

“No, being a dad does,” he clarified, looking down at his feet. Richie snickered, knowing that he’d wondered that about his old man more than once before. Still, Went pressed, “Does he?”

Exaggeratedly taking a puff and making himself out to be much further gone than two hits would ever have affected him, Richie asked, “Does he what?” Went gave him a deadpan glare and Richie folded. “I'm kidding,” he laughed, noting that the ringing in his ears was starting to grow. “No. Probably not,” he answered finally, taking a second hit. He rubbed at his neck and shrugged. “I haven't told him, which is more what you're asking right?”

Went surveyed his son carefully. That was what he was asking. If the boys kept dancing around each other, one of them was going to crack. It had already been almost two weeks. Sure, the small, casual intimacies were great. It was helping, but looking at his son, he could see that he hadn’t been sleeping well. Hopefully, their little session would help with that. Still, he could tell that there was still so much unsaid. They weren’t moving fast enough. He should have known that Boniface wouldn’t explain it all to them. At least not in a way they’d understand. So, he pressed himself to ask, “What are you waiting for?” 

There was no judgment. There was no pressure. It was just a question. A question for which, unfortunately, Richie had no answer. Went tilted his head to one side and waited for a response that wasn’t coming. 

Half dead on his feet, Richie nearly lost his balance trying to pass the joint back to his father. The older man glanced at the door. “You should go back inside. This won't help that.” He gestured toward the way his son was clutching the side of his head, trying to focus on what his dad had just asked him.

The dull ache in his head starting would have been enough to convince Richie alone. The look on his father’s face, though? That meant he looked like shit. The last time he could remember a face like that prior to being in the hospital was the year he’d gotten hit with the stomach flu over Christmas and spent the majority of break on the bathroom floor. He knew he looked like death then- Eddie had come over with a painter’s mask, rubber gloves, Pedialyte, and some Matzo broth from Stan’s mom. When he’d insisted that he could handle it alone, Eddie had taken a Polaroid of him wrapped around the base of the toilet as proof that he needed to accept help. If his father’s face was any indication, he was going. “Okay, okay.” Despite his mind’s resilient resistance, he found himself lingering on that memory of Eddie, standing over him like one of the CIA guys from E.T., and gasped a little. He turned back to the door, opened it wide, then turned back. “Dad-”

"Hm?" 

"What happens if I love him and he doesn't…" Richie drummed his fingers on the wood, glanced in at Eddie, tossing and turning in his sleep, and knew he didn't have long before he woke up and came looking. "His dad told him about a college buddy who bonded to someone unintentionally like we did and it didn't work out the way they thought and it-"

Went took a deep breath and nodded. If Eddie didn't know, then there was no point in telling Richie. Richie would tell Eddie and that would make a mess of a family unit that was already stressed. He wouldn’t be responsible for making things harder- on the boys or on Frank. "A buddy, huh? I remember it, too," he answered, and took another drag off the joint before snubbing it out. "Well, if it's a platonic or familial bond, you'll figure it out. It'll be hard," he said,, watching Richie carefully, "especially if one of you does end up falling for the other in the meantime. But, Richie?" He said, noticing the telltale signs of his son retreating into his head. "I've seen the difference. You two have nothing to worry about."

He nodded and looked back at Eddie. He could only hope his father was right.

"And Rich-"

"Yeah?"

Whether or was the nostalgia, the pot, or just his parental instincts, Went had to add, "I know you're trying to take it slow, but don't fight what you feel. And, if he starts worrying about what his mother said this morning," he clenched his teeth, nauseated by the way it had been presented- more thrown- at the boys. "Make sure he knows that won't happen."

Richie's eyes grew sad. "I would never."

Went nodded. That much was obvious to anyone who wasn't the boys. "You know that. I know that. Does Eddie?" He watched the way his son avoided his glance and sighed. "Just remember, if you're worried about it, he probably is, too."

As Richie walked back in, his head spinning and hands trembling, he moved directly to the bed. When he got there, he was unsurprisingly to find Eddie awake and watching him. "Where'd you go?" he asked quietly.

“My dad was out back,” he said, snagging an Altoid from his nightstand and stripping off his shirt, quickly stuffing it down into his hamper.

Eddie hung his hand off the side of the bed and reached for him. “C’mere,” he said, a curious tone in his voice. 

“Are you okay?” Richie asked, taking his hand and bouncing his knees against the edge of the mattress. 

He nodded, closing his eyes and tugging Richie down toward him. “Yeah. Just… fuzzy?” He answered, not sure that it was the right word. “The buzzing is back. It woke me up.”

Climbing over Eddie, he made sure to make as much physical contact as he could. Once he was situated against the wall, he tugged Eddie in close and wrapped him in his arms. “Better?” he asked as he pressed his lips to the hollow of his throat.

“Mhm,” he answered, arching his back. He was finding that, in instances in which he was separated from Richie for too long, he was more and more responsive upon his return and he couldn’t help it. Richie noticed too, kissing a path up his neck and sucking down just below the hinge of his jaw. Eddie let out an involuntary moan, swallowing it quickly into a hum, a furious blush painting his cheeks. “Richie?” he asked, combing his fingers through the hair above Richie’s ear

Absently, Richie lifted his mouth away from Eddie’s skin for a moment, a brief “Yeah?” passing through his otherwise occupied lips.

His fingers danced down Richie’s side before gently rubbing at the cut of his hip. “Remember what we talked about?”

Lately, Eddie’s touch made Richie’s skin sing with excitement. Distracted, he mumbled, “When? We've talked about a lot lately.” 

While that was true, Eddie knew that Richie remembered. He had to. “The other night.” Richie quieted, thinking it over. Taking his hand, Eddie decided to help him along. He slid one of Richie’s fingers into his mouth and sucked down the full length of it, up once, his tongue straggling on the way, then back down, sliding off with a wet pop.

“Ohhh. What you talked about," he says, making Eddie acutely aware that he'd been playing with him. Richie twisted his hips, trying to obscure the fact that Eddie’s attention had gone straight to his dick. 

Eddie gave a wicked little smile and, not so subtly, glanced down at the rise of the fabric of his pajama pants. “Yeah. Well, I was thinking… maybe…” Richie arched his eyebrow, attention locked with laser-sharp precision on Eddie. “Not quite that, but I thought we could take another step toward that. Maybe, we could…” he slid his hand gently down Richie’s chest and hooked two fingers into the elastic at his waist, adding “help each other out.”

Rolling over so that he was practically on top of Eddie, Richie kissed him, their lips moving together in a fairly practiced routine. “Since when are you the-” he started, when oxygen became a necessity but realized that he wasn’t going to be the one to try to come up with the appropriate answer. Eddie’s hand started to trail ever closer to his dick, his thumb even ghosting the base once- just once- and it was enough that Richie knew that he was going to need to cool off before they made a go of this or he was going to finish way too soon. “I've been the one jumping your bones for a month and you keep-” Richie meant to state that Eddie had become the one who was making advances, now and he didn’t understand when that had happened. He really did. But all he could manage was a throaty, “Oh, God,” as Eddie trailed his fingers over the shaft.

“Do you want me to stop?” Eddie asked, curling his fingers around Richie and pumping slowly. 

Richie writhed a bit, “No. Just- I...” he managed to turn until he was fully across Eddie. “I want to start. I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel.” He slid his hands under the hem of Eddie’s pajama top. He toyed with the idea of lifting it over his head. For the briefest of seconds, tearing it off of him felt like the answer. Eventually, he decided on slowly, laboriously, unbuttoning each button and rolling it off of him. Pinned under Richie, Eddie was entirely at his mercy. And he wanted to make sure that Eddie knew just how much he wanted him so he was going to take his sweet, sweet time. “God, you're gorgeous. Do you know that?” he asked, grinding down against him slowly as he worked at the closures. Eddie blushed, turning his face away. 

His reticence only encouraged Richie. If he didn’t know, he was going to. He stopped, kissed him, then trailed his hand down to resume. “You are. Every time we go out to the quarry, I can't take my eyes off you. And now…” with all of the buttons undone, Richie was able to get it off quickly, leaving half a dozen wet kisses down his abs. 

Even through the fabric of his pajama pants and Richies, he could feel how hard and warm Richie was, and all for him. All  _ because  _ of him. He bucked his hips up against him and felt a tingle over his whole skin. “Fuck. Richie. I need…”

“What, babe,” he practically purred, leaning down beside Eddie’s ear. “Tell me what you need.” 

Jaw slack, Eddie moaned out a quiet, “You.”

He tugged Richie’s lower lip between his and pressed himself flush against him. Trembling hands charted new territories. Breathless sighs became guttural moans. Before long, he was following Richie over the edge. He laid there, Richie a comfortable weight on top of him. He carded his hands through the sweat-soaked hair at the nape of his neck.

"So, you’re…" Richie panted, a little cum-dumb. His body still felt like it was vibrating. Idly, he hoped he wasn’t crushing Eddie because he was in absolutely no shape to move. "You’re really good at that."

With his own chest still heaving, he gave a crooked little smile. "Are you gonna be able to go without for two weeks?"

"I’ve gone without for seventeen years," he laughed. "Two weeks won’t-" He stopped and really thought about it. "We can be quiet."

"Remember the walls?" he reminded him.

"Oh," It had hardly been a day. Of course, he remembered the fact that Eddie’s parents had heard him sneaking in all those years. They'd heard them talking and laughing, which meant that nothing would be secret. "Oh… Shit."

Eddie nodded sagely, adding a drawn-out, "Yep." They were loud. He could tell, also, that they'd only get progressively louder as they broached more and more serious intimacy.

Clearing his throat, Richie shook his head and drew his fingers lazily along the inside of Eddie’s outstretched arm. "Still. We’ll figure it out." He closed his eyes and pressed a sleepy kiss to Eddie’s lips.

"But not here. We're not sleeping like this," he clarified. They were both absolutely wrecked, but neither of them were sleeping in sweat and cum-drenched pajamas. Absolutely not. He managed to roll out from under him. Groaning at the loss of contact and sudden drop, Richie covered his face with a pillow. "Richie, get up," Eddie said, tugging at him limb by limb until he had no choice but to stand or fall. 

He hopped into the shower first, then went to change the sheets while Richie did the same. It had become a bit of a routine. He found it amusing how quickly they picked up domestic habits. He'd read that it was all a part of nesting. It was all very vague, but the book mentioned that it might happen at different stages in a bond, as it strengthens or matures, and it may manifest in different ways. He'd laughed and shoved the pamphlet at Richie, saying they'd have to ask Stan what type of birds they were.

Still, curled up on Richie’s right as they readied for bed every night that week, he couldn’t help but wonder how they were going to get through it. No matter what, they weren’t going to be as comfortable at his parents' house and he knew it. He hadn't been comfortable there in years as it was. There was a sinking feeling in his belly the night before that, if they went, something was going to go wrong.

That Saturday, Richie grabbed their stuff and threw it in the car. "Ready, Spaghetti?" he asked, clomping down the steps and jumping to a stop at Eddie’s feet. 

"No," he laughed, continuing to make a final sweep for things Richie was inevitably going to forget. Even though they were hardly going four blocks total, he didn't trust that he'd be able to will himself to go back if he left there. "You?"

Richie followed behind, draping his arms over his shoulders. "No." It wasn’t even a question. There was no real way to convince himself to be ready to stay someplace where he was public enemy #1 for an extended period of time, but he would try. With Eddie by his side, he'd make it work. 

Eddie gripped Richie’s forearm lightly and rested his cheek against it. "But we don’t really have a choice, do we?" he groaned.

Moving around him, Richie planted himself squarely before him. "Eddie." He averted his eyes, but Richie tilted his chin forcing him to at least sort of look his way. "Eddie, look at me. The minute things start going sideways, we’re so fucking out of there." Eddie looked down grimly, but Richie had this speech prepared. After what had happened at lunch earlier, he and Ben had done some research. "Look, the state of Maine considers entrance a bond grounds for termination of parental rights. She has no say here."

Eddie knew that. Dr. Boniface had made that clear when he'd had Sonia escorted from the hospital. Still, "She’s my mother," was all he could reply.

"I’m not saying ice her out. I’m just saying that, at this point, you and I make decisions for ourselves. You don’t have anything to tie you there." Eddie opened his mouth, then shut it, shaking his head. He moved to interrupt again. This time, Richie added, "And before you say your dad or anything like that, I don’t mean that either. I mean, what’s the worst she can do? Kick you out? You have somewhere else to live." 

Eddie nodded, breath hitching unevenly. He thought back on the day, freshman year, when he'd left his inhaler in his dad's car and his dad had left for a business trip and, of course, he'd worked himself up over it to the point he needed it. Richie had tugged him out of the cafeteria and second-period study hall and sat down cross-legged in front of him. Their knees touched together, Richie took Eddie's hands in his own. 

"Breathe with me," he said.

Panic settling deep inside him, he shook his head. "Fuck you, dude, you know asthma isn't something you can just fucking breathe through," he growled. He could feel his chest constricting already.

"And? You were fucking fine until you started freaking out about your inhaler," he said pulling Eddie’s hands to rest at his ribcage. "Right now, your options are: humor me or fucking pass out. Then, when you pass out, I'll have no choice but to give you mouth to mouth." 

Eddie’s breathing faltered again. This time, it was a renewed panic. Richie absolutely could not give him mouth to mouth. He didn't know the first thing about CPR. He'd spent their whole unit on life-saving maneuvers doing particularly vile things to the mannequin. Somehow, Eddie would end up with air in his stomach and. 

Plus, their friends had called him Trashmouth for a reason. There were zillions of germs in the average mouth. Richie probably had ten times that.

Plus, he'd probably start crying and be of no help to anyone.

Plus…

Plus, if Richie ever got that close to his mouth, he'd know. He'd know he was gay and he'd know he was in love with him. He'd know and he'd hate him and he'd never speak to him again.

Richie, going into crisis mode, scooched from his position and wedged himself behind Eddie. "Here, breathe with me," he said. "Get your breath to match mine." He rested his hand at Eddie’s ribcage feeling it expand in time with his. "Good. Do one of those lip things we see the marching band kids do."

"Do what?"

He sighed, then trrilled his lips, making them vibrate with a steady stream of air giving him the vague appearance of a horse. "That," he instructed. "Ready?  Together, they managed to calm Eddie down quickly, but he was so spent that they found themselves sitting in the hallway for a good patch of time. It was nice, quiet and uninterrupted as they were. Uninterrupted, that was until Bowers and Hockstetter walked by on their way to terrorize some kid or other. 

"Practicing for when you finally have that gay baby of yours, faggots?" Bowers spat as Hocksteyter walked behind, giving an even hee hee hoo every step or so.

Richie's hand bore down protectively on Eddie. "Your sister didn't tell you?" he asked, feigning shock. "You're gonna be an uncle. Congrats, dude!" He teased. "She just doesn't know which one of us sealed the deal so we'reboth practicingfor the big day."

"Richie…" Eddie hissed. He shifted awkwardly, trying to extricate himself from the situation. Richie would have none of it. He kept his arms tight around him, trying to make the rise and fall of his chest as obvious as possible so that Eddie would remember to keep matching it.

“No, man, just know, whichever one of us it is, she’ll be well taken care of,” he said, nodding at him and begging him to try it. 

There must have been something in the air, something that confused and intimidated Bowers all the same. When Hockstetter moved to attack, Bowers grabbed him by the jacket and tugged him along. “We’ll get ‘em later,” he grumbled. “It’d be too easy to kill ‘em both right now.” 

All the while, Richie had never stopped his attempt at calming Eddie. “Better, dude?” he asked when the bullies were well out of sight. 

Eddie nodded and stood, pulling Richie to his feet. “Thanks, Rich,” he said, looking down.

He patted his cheek gently and smiled. “Any time.”

Even still, a few years down the line and a million shared experiences between them screaming that they should have known that it was so much more than that one time, they stood in the basement, by the bed- their bed- in much the same position.

This time, there was a tenderness- an intimacy. They stood a little closer. Richie swiped his thumb gently across Eddie’s jaw. Eddie’s right hand was rested lightly on Richie’s hip, his left in Richie’s back pocket. Their gaze was tenderly locked on each other, not awkwardly avoidant. Richie looked at Eddie and smiled thoughtfully. “It's you and me and we'll figure it out, no matter what happens. You don’t need her. Okay?”

Filling his lungs with one deep breath, Eddie gave in. “Okay,” he said before trilling his lips to expel the rest of his breath. Richie laughed and leaned down to kiss him. “Okay,” he repeated, trying to talk himself into it.

Richie laughed and slung his arm around him and lead him toward the stairs. “Come on,” he said, knocking their hips together as they walked.

The drive was short and familiar. They hesitated a moment in the driveway. When Richie moved to pop the trunk, Eddie reached to still his hand. "Let's just take the backpack in. I don’t-"

Impressed, Richie shook his head and moved instead to unlock the doors. "Say no more, Eds. Operation Potential Quick Getaway." He leaned across the center console and kissed him, right hand coming to rest cradling his neck as had become second nature. "First sign of trouble, we're so fucking out of here." 

He'd have been lying if he said there were no Spideysenses going haywire as they walked up the front path hand in hand. It seemed wrong. Even the sky seemed ominous. Sure, summer storms weren't uncommon along the coast, but still… this was different. 

Pulling the tiny brass key from his back pocket, Eddie turned the lock slowly and opened the door even more so. The longer he could make it take, the better. 

As soon as the lock turned, he heard, along with, the tell-tale thud of his mother’s La-Z-Boy and shrunk. He’d hoped she wouldn’t be home. Maybe they could have a minute to get settled. No such luck.

She shuffled toward the door, wrapping Eddie tightly in her arms, rocking him back and forth, nearly suffocating him in her bosom. He could already feel the stinging, burning throb where her skin is against his as she let herself greet him with a nasally, pinched, "My Eddie-bear!" She lifted his chin and pressed her cheek to his.

Eddie struggled against her, Richie tugging at the back of his shirt in an attempt to assist. Before long, he, too, was feeling long angry stripes that matched Sonia's arms and cheek. He winced, crying out "Ah! Mom, stop. You’re hurting-"

Keeping her hands on his exposed forearms, she scoffed an indignant, "So, I just don’t get to hug my baby boy ever again?" 

"No, actually. It seems like it’s skin-to-skin that makes it the worst," he huffed, finally feeling himself and moving back to Richie’s side, lacing their fingers together and inspecting the welt that had formed on Richie’s arm. "The more layers between, the better. Latex gloves on her hands and a pillow between worked pretty nicely for Mrs. Tozier," he pointed out. He knew it was a risky statement, but he thought maybe providing her the alternative would be helpful. "It couldn’t be for long, but-"

She sniffed, turning up her nose to him. "No, it’s fine. I don’t want to put you in a position that would make you uncomfortable."

"I’m just-"

She returned to her chair with a teary, "Forget it." 

A darkness fell over her. It was the same aura as the summer he'd broken his arm. She'd forbidden him from going out, fed him all sorts of pills and lies about the dangers they brought to him. He'd fallen down a hill running from Hockstetter and Belch Huggins. If Richie, Mike, and Stan hadn't been nearby, who knows what would have happened when they finally caught up to him. He'd heard the type of things he did when he finally caught up to his prey and he really didn't want to be on the receiving end of it. 

"You remember where your room is?" she said, squinting at Eddie, not even bothering to look at Richie.

Eddie looked at the floor and clung a little more tightly to Richie’s hand. "Yes, mom." He grumbled about not having memory loss and Richie sniggered. They walked up the stairs and Richie went into Eddie's room, dropping the backpack around the bedpost, then dropped into the bed. Eddie, however, froze in the doorway, hand out at hip level. "She took the do- she took the-'' He looked around, smacking his hand gently up and down the frame until his palm found the exposed plate of the hinges. "The door?! She took the door!?" He burst into his room staring at it and gesturing broadly at the open space. His mouth hung open as wide as the previously occupied area as he reeled. "I can’t believe her."

Propping himself up on his elbows, Richie surveyed the situation. "Do you want to leave?" 

In reality, it wasn't the worst thing. Truthfully, he'd expected something more intense. He knew it was supposed to make him start the fight. That was how his mother operated, so he would look like the bad guy and she could hold that guilt over his head. It was manipulative and passive-aggressive and he wasn't playing into it anymore. 

Still, it was so much more than the door.

It was the fact that, now that the rest of the world would more than willing consider him a married man, she wanted to send him back to infancy. Sure, she'd probably wanted that all along but this was different. This was invasive. Even if Richie wasn't in the picture, this would have been too much for him to handle. But now, it wasn't just his privacy. It was Richie’s, too. He just couldn’t believe her.

"Not until my dad gets home," he growled. "Then, probably. I don't know."

"Okay," Richie said, sitting up to reach for Eddie’s hand. He tugged him down next to him and kissed him. It was a chaste kiss, by Richie’s standard, but he could feel Eddie’s rage and discomfort growing inside him. He decided it was best not to test boundaries right then, not that either of them had ever had any boundaries with the other. Still, he couldn’t help but believe that making out in his bed with the door gone would be a step too far.

It was silly, he knew, but an act of, he felt, bold defiance struck him. He stood up and motioned for Richie to do the same, stripped the top sheet from his bed, and looked around the room for something to use to affix it. Catching his drift, Richie crossed to the bulletin board behind the desk and snagged 4 push pins from their line at the edge of the cork, then walked over to him, pushing them into the wooden frame as Eddie held the sheet in place. It wasn’t much, and he knew it would never last if she came upstairs, but it felt like something. 

After a few stolen moments, Eddie needed some distraction, so they busted out the homework and started on their Chemistry final review. Flopped on their stomachs with their legs intertwined and elbows nudging each other gently, Eddie asked the occasional question. When he got fed up, he moved a little closer, trailing his socked foot up the inside of Richie’s leg.

Usually, he’d have gotten at least some sort of a response. Instead, Richie’s jaw was squarely set, his focus straight ahead as he filled in the entire Periodic Table Of Elements from memory. 

“You’re being really quiet,” Eddie said, sliding his paper out of the way and resting his cheek on Richie’s arm, looking up at him.

Richie leaned down and kissed him, then answered, “Because, I think you have it covered.” He smoothed Eddie’s hair back then kept his hand on the back of his head. “I’m here for you. I’ll jump in swinging if you need me, but you have this handled.” He was sure that this fight was all Eddie. More than that, Eddie was more than capable. He was brave and smart and determined. There was nothing he couldn’t handle.

Still, Richie wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t know what else to do, but just be there. Until there was something for him to do, he was going to stay available.

“But there’s no battle yet,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “We’re doing chem packets, which you’re great at and normally make fun of me for being shit at.”

For their entire lives, Eddie had asked non-stop for him to stop making fun of him. For years, he’d ignored his pleas. The one time he decides not to… Richie squinted at him skeptically. “Are you asking me to make fun of you?”

“Yes,” he admitted sheepishly. “Because you never really mean it.”

“I do mean it, though,” he said, lifting his eyebrows higher to prove a point. “You wouldn’t know the difference between Sodium Bromide and Mrs. Hinckley next door until you poured hot water on one and it caught fire.”

Eddie coughed a confused laugh. “What?” he asked, wondering what Sodium Bromide and his neighbor had to do with one another. 

Point proven, Richie leaned down and kissed him once, quick, and said, "Exactly." Things started to feel a little better as they joked about the review pack. Covalent bonds almost derailed the study session entirely, with Richie laying flat on top of Eddie as a demonstration.

Before long, the front door opened and Frank made his way upstairs. Seeing their laughter and the wide-open door, he stepped inside. "Hey, boys! What’s-"

Eddie’s face fell as he looked up at his father. He pointed at the area around the man with a firmly set down. "Did you know about this?"

"Abooout?" He looked up, then around. Putting the pieces together, he frowned and stepped back out of the room to examine it. He closed his eyes, sighing deeply. "No. No, I did not." He shook his head and extended his hand toward the boys, a wordless signal to wait, that he'd figure it out. "Sonia?" he called, his tone deceptively dulcet.

"Yes, dear?" she answered, in that same mockingly sweet voice.

He turned to the steps and walked down them as the boys started putting their papers away. Richie tucked the bag by the top of the steps as they followed behind Frank and came to a stop in the front hall. "Where is our son’s bedroom door?"

"In the garage," she answered.

At least she didn't throw it out, Eddie thought.

"That’s a strange place for a bedroom door, don’t you think?" Frank asked, shaking his head at her as he entered the living room. 

"Not when we need to be keeping an eye on them," she said, disinterested as she blew across her freshly painted nails. "After being struck by lightning? I just want to make sure they’re alright," she tsked.

"They weren’t struck by lightning," Frank said, gesturing above him toward where he thought the boys were. "They were  _ near _ a lightning strike. A month ago. They were  _ bonded,  _ Sonia. There’s no need to be keeping an-"

Face approaching a lovely shade of scarlet, Sonia scoffed. "Oh? There’s no need." She glowered at her husband. Frank could see the fire in her eyes and, for the first time in ages,, he was more than ready to give it right back. "Of course, you’re okay with them doing-"

"Whatever it is that they choose to do to make this time easier on them?" he said, his own more quiet brand of rage working within him. "Yes. Do I wish they’d been a little older? Sure. But do you know what? They’re big boys, Sonia. They were going to reach this point eventually."

Frank knew it. Went and Maggie knew it. Half their teachers had expressed their suspicions. He couldn't believe that, of all the people in Derry, the boy's own mother was the one who couldn't see it. 

She rose from her chair, somehow still managing to seem larger than life as Eddie peeked around the corner. "No, they weren’t."

"Come on," he groaned.

All that did was work her up more. She took a step toward him and gave a wicked smile. Frank set his jaw and stared her down. She didn't intimidate him. Whatever she was going to say couldn't hurt him.

"Just because you and that awful former roommate of yours were stupid and careless and walked into one of those mass bonding ceremonies in Central Park and got caught up in it doesn’t mean that they’re going to get the fairytale ending you never got! He never loved you just like his son doesn't love yours!"

The house fell quiet in the wake of Sonia's sonic boom. Eddie and Richie looked at each other, stunned. Turning into the living room, Eddie stared at Frank. "Dad? Your college buddy-"

"Not entirely true," he said, both to his wife’s accusation and his son’s immediate connection to his loaded precautionary tale.  Edging past Eddie, Richie sprinted for the kitchen, losing his breakfast into the sink. Coming back to reality,, Eddie shook his head and bolted after his husband, a quiet "Oh my God," the only answer he could give. He stood behind Richie, reaching into the drawer where his mother kept the clean dish and handed it to him as the tap ran cool water. Eddie rubbed small circles ever his back, hoping to offer some comfort.

He could hear his mother loosed a dark laugh. "That’s just great," she scoffed. "Now, look what you’ve done!"

All he could do was ignore her and focus on Richie. He could feel every beat of Richie’s heart coursing within his blood. He "Hey. Hey, are you okay? What’s-"

"Did you know?" he panted, tears stinging his eyes as he spat the remaining water into the sink and washed the puke down the drain.

He leaned down on the edge of the counter so that Richie could see him clearly. “No,” he answered, a sense of urgent concern washing over him. “No, Richie, I swear. He never told me.” Then, it hit him. After everything. When he was terrified in that hospital bed, waiting for Richie to come to. Even before, when he’d asked. He was sure it had to hurt, but he and his dad were close. How could he not tell him? “He never told me,” he repeated, quietly reeling.

Richie rested his head against the cool steel of the counter and closed his eyes. “Neither did mine.” The more he thought about it, the more... “Oh God." Richie grimaced as he wretched again. 

This time, Eddie was more prepared, pushing the longer tendrils of Richie’s hair out of his face, his other hand still reassuringly on the small of his back. "Hey, you're okay. We're okay," he could hear his father starting to regain his composure. The yelling easing off from the name-calling and irrelevant personal jabs and settling back into the current argument. "Let’s get out of here. Fuck this." 

Richie nodded and rinsed his mouth out one more time before following Eddie into the hall and up the steps. 

Never one to yell, Frank was about as close to it as he'd been since Sonia had spent the first month of the summer after Eddie had graduated fifth grade dosing the kid with NyQuil. He'd been livid and immediately arranged for a 6-week long "work trip" to New York and insisted that Eddie come along. 

Fearing that he would take Eddie away for good, Sonia had given in. She hadn't even made a stink when Eddie called her and said that they'd run into the Toziers-  _ How cool is that, Ma? Dad and Mr. Tozier took us to this huge toy store and then to a park that was as big as all of Derry. Maybe even bigger! It was just like Fievel, Ma! _ She had, as far as she was concerned, paid her penance. The night before they were set to come home, she’d called Frank in tears. “I never m-m-m-meant to hu-hu-hurt him. He’s just s-s-s-so…”

“So, what, Sonia? Weak?” he suggested to a sniffled affirmation. “No. No, he carried Richie on his back three whole blocks, then ran circles around him.”

She stifled a gasp, then said, “He’s so sick. All the time.” 

Frank was quiet for a while, then. “I called the doctor. And the pharmacist. Eddie hasn’t been sick in years. Not since that ear infection when he was 2. His inhaler? It’s water. Pure water. Those big horse pills you make him choke down? A multivitamin, an extra vitamin D, and an Aspirin. That’s it.” He could hear her wailing on the other end of the line but could hardly find it in himself to care. “You are killing him. He’s terrified of everything and that’s on you.” He looked at the little boy sleeping away on the bed beside him. “Do you know how scared I was when I couldn’t wake him up? Do you know?”

“I’m s-s-s-sorry, Frank,” she whimpered.

He shook his head. “I need you to promise me. I need you to promise that you will never pull a stunt like this again.” 

“I promise,” she said, voice growing steadier. He could hear her wine glass clink down on the table.

“If I bring him home tomorrow, you let him be. He gets to grow up a happy, normal boy, do you hear me?” There was no room for miscommunication. He would not put his son at risk again. Not when he didn’t have to. Sonia was an option. Eddie was not.

That reclaimed steadiness fled her voice. “You can’t take him,” she cried. “Not after everything else you’ve put me through, Frank! You can’t do that to me!”

He sighed. “Let’s get one thing straight, here. If I could have bonded to you, you know that I would have,” he whispered, moving into the bathroom and running the taps full out so that, should Eddie wake up, he wouldn’t hear their conversation. 

He knew how cruel kids could be about unbonded parents. He could hear how awful the kids were to that poor Marsh girl when it turned out that her Father had been laying his hands on some of the girls at the high school. He’d heard the names they’d called her mother when she got up the strength to leave. The kids had been so young. She’d thought that, someday, the prick would come around. That he’d love her. But when she found out what he’d been doing, she took Beverly and ran. The way that they’d ostracized her. He’d been grateful that she’d fallen in so quickly with Eddie and Richie and their group- their Club, they insisted. Still, he could see the way she looked at the group of girls that hung around with the pharmacist’s daughter. They tortured her. That was clear. He would do anything to spare Eddie that.

He sat down on the closed lid of the toilet, shaking the memory from his head. “I have told you that I loved you, as much as I can. You don’t get to pin the fact that our bond didn’t take on me. That’s not something you can control. Even if Went-”

“Don’t,” she asked. 

“Even if I hadn’t been bonded to anyone else, it wouldn’t have taken,” he said sadly.

It was true. When they were young, he had loved her. Even, he thought, madly. He’d been terrified to tell her about his previous bonding. He knew it could make things complicated, but he wanted it to work.

Then, she’d gone ballistic. She’d insisted that it was fine, but she’d changed. She became the paranoid woman that had mothered Eddie and not the happy, warm woman he’d fallen in love with overnight. Once she’d shown her true colors, his interest had waned considerably. He still, loved her, but it was nothing like the way he’d felt before. Even when he’d proposed, he wondered if it was right. 

Once Eddie was born, Frank understood. The moment that baby had entered the world, almost 3 weeks early, and wrapped his teeny tiny hand around the tip of his finger, he was done for. It was him who was wrapped around Eddie’s finger. 

That’s what was right. Eddie made his world right.

After a quiet moment, Sonia asked, “What if that’s not enough for me anymore?”

Still, when the boys came home, Frank and Sonia had hugged. He’d given her a peck on the cheek that she turned into, making it a much deeper kiss than Frank wanted. Eddie had stuck his tongue out in disgust and ran into the house. “Are we okay?” she asked, eyes large and sad.

“We will be,” he had assured.

As he stood there, some five years later, that same precious little boy, nearly a grown man with a bond of his own driving his mother closer to an aneurysm, he wasn’t sure that they had ever, truly, been okay. “I cannot believe you,” he growled. “Do you get what you just did?”

Sonia rolled her eyes and leaned back into her hip. “I don’t care what I did. If his parents didn’t tell him, that’s their cross to bear,” she said, spitting out the words like a particularly sour grape. She stuck her nose in the air and lifted her brow proudly. “Some people should be more honest with their children.”

Stunned to silence, Frank stared at her, mouth agape. “We didn’t exactly tell Eddie either,” he snapped, when he finally found his words.

A deafening blast of a spiteful laugh escaped her. “I thought you and Eddie were close. He doesn’t know that you’re more like him than he can imagine?” She sniffed indignantly and shuffled, “Fine. Well, then, you’re no saint, either.”

“And you’re absolved of any guilt, here?” he asked looking back to the vacant kitchen because he just couldn’t look at her anymore. 

She shook her head, plump lips pursed out maliciously, near vacant brows downturned into a sharp v, despite the roundness of her face. “I married you, even though you couldn’t bond to me. I bore your child. I’ve done my duty to the man I love who never loved me,” she said. The dark timbre to her voice wasn’t exactly new. He’d heard it before. Eddie’d heard it more, usually directed at his friends. She sounded like a snotty kid doing an impression of a cartoon villain. 

An image of a purple half-squid danced through Frank’s mind and he had to fight off a laugh. “I loved you once,” he said, staring up at the ceiling, unable to believe himself.

“Bullshit,” she said, letting herself drop back down into her chair.

Shaking with rage, Frank stepped back. He looked down at her and took a steadying breath. “I did. Now…”

“Save it,” she scoffed.

The front door opened and closed quickly and, once again, Frank found himself chasing Richie and Eddie to the car. “Boys-”

Eddie spun on his heel and held his hand up in a vague stop position.“Don’t. We’re leaving.” He fumbled with the car door, then looked up at Richie to see that he was still struggling with the keys.

“Please, Eddie, stop,” Frank asked, nearly begging. He just wanted a moment to explain his side. “Listen to me.”

For the first time in his life, Eddie stood his ground entirely. He could feel Richie’s assurance, even from across the car, and it made him even stronger. He voiced a simple, clear “No.” He looked his father squarely in the eye.

Backing away, Frank glanced between the two. “Just, wait. Please?”

Finally, Richie got the car open as Eddie tried to shake off his father. "Fuck. No, this is fucking- This is absurd! He pointed up at the house, "She fucking puts the mother in smother and you…" he dropped his hand to his thighs and stumbled over his words. "You…" He looked up at the sky, frustrated with himself for not being able to come up with the words. He was mad. Madder, he thought, than he'd ever been. He looked at his father and all he could see was the betrayal. He had spent years terrified of things in his life because of one stupid story and now, not only did he not know what was true, the fact that it was his father? What else had he missed? "I can’t even fucking talk right now!"

The passenger door popped open and Richie said, I got it. Let’s get the fuck out of here." He started the car and Eddie hopped in. All Frank could do at that point was stare.

They drove, first to Richie's, then realized that neither was ready for round two. So, he kept on driving. He drove and drove, Eddie's hand laced in his hair trailing down his neck. He shivered once and Eddie almost pulled away, but Richie grabbed his wrist, replacing it. "Whatever their deal is," he said quietly as they circled the far side of town once more, "it doesn't change anything about the way I feel about you." He rested his hand on Eddie’s thigh and looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "If I know one thing right now," he said, blinking away tears, "it's that I am stupid fucking in love with you, dude."

All at once, the weight of everything that had happened to them crashed down around Eddie. He'd been "strong." He'd been "brave." He'd been "mature." He'd been all the things that he thought he needed to be. And one moment of pure vulnerability from Richie and he felt it all. The fear, the joy, the giddiness, the love, the anger, all of it. For the first time in ages, since that day on the floor outside the cafeteria, the world started to spin. His chest started to constrict. 

"Stop," he gasped, hand flinging to his diaphragm. "Richie, stop the car," he repeated. 

Without question, he did. He pulled to the side of the road, still far enough from the center of town they wouldn’t be in anyone's way. "I just need a minute. I need air," he panted, sobbing as he flung the door open and bolted into the trees. 

Richie followed behind slowly, careful not to crowd him, but wanting so desperately to help. By the time he heard Eddie’s breathing start to rattle, he moved to him and took his hand. "Do you need mouth to mouth?" The suggestion, though not without its merits, was bizarre enough to Eddie that he coughed out a laugh. "C'mere," he said, and Eddie did so, resting his head against Richie’s chest. He studied its rise and fall for what felt like ages until his own breathing had slowed to match.

Finally, he looked up at him and, tears still stinging the edges of his eyes, he realized it, once and for all. He pushed Richie’s hair out of his face and stared at him, in awe of the whole moment. "I am so fucking in love with you."

With a slight smile, he leaned down and kissed him. Eddie rocked up onto his tippy toes and pressed himself flush against Richie.

Whatever happened next, they'd handle it. Together. 


	8. like they know the score

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys spend some time alone // The calm before the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to skip the not particularly graphic oral sex between two married but still technically underage characters- Once you read "Don't want food" hit ctrl + F and search "They lay there in the quiet."

After everything that had happened at the Kaspbraks, their little detour was more than necessary. It was still early in the afternoon on that warm Saturday by the time they made it back to Richie’s. He looked up at the house, suddenly much smaller than he remembered, and pulled Eddie’s hand into his own and kissed across his knuckles before finally turning off the car and easing out of it before leaning against the hood, waiting for Eddie. Neither felt like grabbing their bags; they’d worry about it later. Richie just wanted to lie down. He still felt like he could get sick again at any moment. 

Eddie moved toward the front door, but Richie tugged at his wrist. “Back door.”

“Why?” he asked, a little thrown. The Toziers had had keys cut for the cellar door for the boys, but he’d never have thought to use it.

Looking in the front window, he saw his mother leaning over the back of the couch to stare at the television before bustling around the living room. “I just don’t want to deal with-” he looked up, struggling to imagine the conversation they were in for when he could manage to have it. No, whatever it was, he wasn’t up for it.

With a small nod, Eddie moved to wrap him in a tight hug. “Okay.” 

“I can’t believe he never told me,” he said into Eddie’s hair.

“I can’t believe we found out through a fucking fight,” Eddie scoffed, shaking his head before pulling back, leaving their hands entwined. “I know I need to hear him out, but like, they should have told me.  _ He  _ should have told me,” he added as they rounded the corner and lifted the storm doors out of the way to head downstairs.

They moved into the room and looked around. Richie dropped his keys on the small table, then closed the door. He leaned back against it and sighed. “Do you think my parents… Do you…” He struggled to phrase the question that had been rolling around in his head. “I mean, obviously they love each other, but that… Do…” He looked at Eddie and tried to imagine if he were to try to bond to, say, Bev down the line. It didn’t make sense. “God, my mom must have been so scared. My parents have been together since my dad was getting his doctorate.” He’d seen the pictures from their wedding. He’d seen the words they’d said to Invoke their bond. They were similar enough to wedding vows, he guessed, but there was a different cadence, a heft. His mother had sworn that she could feel it. His dad said he didn’t. He just assumed that it was a standard issue dad thing, like how they say a Mother realizes that they’re a Mother from the minute, but a Father doesn’t until they hold their baby. Maybe, he realized, it was more to do with the fact that his father had already been bonded. Maybe he just didn’t feel the change because it was already there in some form or another. Worse, he realized, maybe his parents weren’t bonded. Maybe that had been a lie, too.

Eddie sat down on the bed and watched Richie as he started to pace. “Which means that our dads were still newly bonded when your parents started dating. Like…” he tried to do the math, “less than five years, right? Unless they were bonded at the same age we are.”

“Definitely,” Richie said, standing in front of Eddie with his arms folded, knocking his legs against Eddie’s knees. “I think he was trying to tell me the other night. God, I’m so stupid,” he groaned, flopping onto the bed beside him.

“No, you’re not,” he said, rubbing his arm gently. “How could you have known?”

“No. He…” he covered his eyes and rolled onto his side. “Look, I talk to my dad about everything.  _ Everything _ ,” he reiterated, as though Eddie didn’t know that. He propped onto his elbow and picked at a stitch dark duvet. “So, the other night, when I went outside to talk to him, I was telling him about the  _ last  _ fight we encountered with your parents. And he seemed shocked that the story your dad told you was a college friend, but he said he remembered it too. He said not to worry about ours being like that because he’s seen the difference.” Eddie regarded him softly and lowered his body to match him, but Richie rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “God, he was trying to tell me and I just fucking missed it.”

Wishing there was something more he could do to comfort him, Eddie just carried on listening. He, too, was at a loss. It was difficult, but it didn’t really change anything. Not for them, anyway. He thought back over his father’s story again and then what his mother had said struck him. His parents weren’t bonded. But one half of that pair had a successful second bond. “Okay, but, that means, based on the story my dad scarred me with, your parents are bonded, too, because we know mine aren’t.” He locked eyes with Richie, then focused down on his hand. His parents weren’t bonded. What did that mean for him? 

Richie lifted up to a seated position and closed his eyes berating himself for getting so stuck in his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. God,” he hissed, reaching to clasp his hand over Eddie’s. “I’m being so selfish. Are you okay? What do you-”

All Eddie could do was shrug. “It doesn’t surprise me,” he said simply. “My dad takes business trips and is away for months on end. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my parents touch. Even if they had gotten to the point that they were comfortable not needing to touch all the time, I’m sure they’d still need to,” he said. Based on his limited experience with the matter, he knew that he was consistently sucked into Richie’s gravity. He didn’t mind in the least, but Richie’s touch seemed to calm him. He needed it. Richie was a part of him. He couldn’t see that going away and it wasn’t just a  _ them  _ thing. He could tell. Even then, he found his hand absently wandering up Richie’s side, his thumb hooking in the edge of his shirt. “I don’t think they even sleep in the same room anymore. But now?” He laughed, pulling himself up and scooting closer to him. “I know that with the amount that my dad’s away, I couldn’t ever not touch you for that long.” 

That was something. Richie smiled a little, despite how shitty he felt. It was still wild to hear Eddie say things like that so openly. He was still trying to be good. He was. But hearing Eddie say something like how much he liked touching him? Fuck, man. He knew he meant innocuous little touches like now, but he couldn’t help himself. He was seventeen, after all.

“Obviously, things are still so new with us, but I need to be touching you all the time,” he continued, moving to demonstrate. “There is this undercurrent of ‘we should be closer’ all the time and if it’s like that for everyone, my parents are very obviously not bonded,” he said. There was a hint of detached bemusement in his voice. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he definitely should have known. “And it explains why our dads have been so close our whole lives. It’s…” he trailed off and rested his hand on Richie’s shoulder. “What upsets me more is that,” he said, internalizing the careful concern with which Richie was watching him and shook his head, “if my dad had just told me the fucking truth, I wouldn’t have been so scared realizing I had a crush on you.”

A bright smile cracked across Richie’s face. “You had a crush on me?” he cooed, leaning in to rest his forehead against Eddie’s. He kissed the tip of his nose and said, conspiratorially, “I had a crush on you, too, you know?”

Eddie gave a snort of a laugh and shoved him back playfully. “We’ve been over this, jackass."

“I know. I still like to hear it, shithead,” he countered.

“Look, maybe…” It was a strange thought. But, at this point, Richie was starting to imagine that the Universe had a very similar temperament to Stan and, if that was the case and their bonding was The Powers That Be just up and saying “ENOUGH!” it made sense that, maybe, it had been in motion since before they were born. “If their bond developed to be Storgic, it’s because it was supposed to be to make sure that we wound up together.”

Richie chewed at his lip. It didn’t seem likely. In fact, it sounded like a far cry. “Is that…” He scrunched up his face and stood up to retrieve what little information they had on bonds. “I mean, I guess it’s possible. Do you think that other people with natural bonds have families who are bonded for one reason or another? So that people stay close?” He’d never heard of it before, but people were still so hush-hush about it that it wouldn’t really have surprised him, he supposed. 

It was something that they could certainly look into. Obviously, it would just be easier to ask one of their Dads about how they actually got bonded. Of course, it would. But Eddie wasn’t ready for that. Richie certainly wasn’t. So, the best they could do at the moment was try to find out more about it. 

The hospital literature was scant at best. The pamphlets were the equivalent of the safe sex ones in the nurse’s office at school. Vague, broad, and totally unhelpful. However, Dr. Boniface had sent them home with a folder full of photocopied articles and chapters from Medical and Homeopathic books. He had read through most of them, but it wasn’t exactly like there were documented cases or anything, that he remembered.   


He flopped across the foot of the bed and placed it halfway between himself and Richie. “I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess. That would be…” Richie groaned as he popped his feet up on Eddie’s ass, earning him a vaguely annoyed growl. But the more he thought about it, he couldn’t come up with a reason for it to not happen, at least sometimes. Most of what he had scanned out of the reading material had been heavily rooted in “Everything happens for a reason,” and “Trust your bond.” It stood to reason, then, that there could be an eventuality to all of it. “It makes sense, I guess. But like, do you think that your dad has a soulmate still out there somewhere?”

Eddie hadn’t thought of that. He let the idea sit for a while, then shrugged. “I would hope so. I mean, it would suck that they could have had so much time, and it’s weird that they would definitely not be my mom-”

“That goes without saying,” Richie nodded.

“But, I’d like to believe that whatever causes bonds-” he said, sliding a photocopied article that he'd annotated each of the seven types and of bonds and why he thought that, maybe, it was possible that they had hit all seven, up at Richie, “fate or genes or whatever- I would hope that it didn’t just cast him aside.” Richie closed his eyes and nodded. It was really a fucked up thing. 

They spent the bulk of the afternoon in bed, reading over the pamphlets a little more thoroughly than before. Even though they’d studied together before, it was usually such a distraction, they didn’t get much done. Now, though, Richie had to begrudgingly admit that, maybe, Dr. Boniface had been right. Eddie did seem to help with his distraction. But he also noticed more and different things that he would never have noticed before. 

Eddie was a note-taker. The margins grew littered with questions and connections. He also read really, painstakingly slow. He squinted when he read, especially the smaller font sizes, which Richie was going to have to remember to bug him about getting his eyes checked. He kicked his feet when something clicked. Richie was a highlighter and a speed reader. The combination of the two led to a bizarrely quick intake of information on the second go-round. He thought better when he had something in his mouth- a pen, gum, whatever. 

By the time they had talked through all of the information they’d gathered, it ultimately had them no closer to an answer than before. In fact, all it had done was reiterated that it was likely that they had more than one type of bond. There were things that fit in each box, based on their prior relationship, the circumstances of their bond, and how they felt in the moment. There were some that were definite: Erotic, Philic, Ludic, Storgic. There was no denying the passionate attraction, deep-rooted friendship, familiar, or playfully flirtatious bonds. One had possibility. Pragmatic love talked about longevity and drive to make it work. It seemed apathetic compared to the four they were sure of, but Eddie had immediately thought of the way they'd been rolling with what came with one common desire- making the best of it for each other. If he looked at it that way, it made sense. The other two were more abstract, Philautic bonds talked about the partner helping you love yourself and loving them as an extension of yourself. Agapic bonds talked more about selfless love and cooperative partnership. It was enough to make their heads spin. One of the photocopies had a paragraph at the bottom that said "In the event of a septangular bond, the couple can expect uncommon and heightened occurrences. As their bodies-" and then stopped. Dr. Boniface hadn't thought to include the rest, ending it with just the descriptions.

Frustrated, Eddie cast his last pamphlet back into the pile and rubbed his eyes with his hands. “So, now what?” He crawled up between Richie’s legs and hooked his arms around his middle, resting his head against his chest. He looked up at him and suggested the one thing he knew they both desperately wanted to avoid. “You know we’re gonna have to talk to them eventually, right?”

“I was thinking that I might just hide here with you,” he said, trailing his hands lazily down Eddie’s side. “Just hunker down here and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Like we’re stranded on a desert island, like Robinson Crusoe style. Just you and me. Fuck the rest,” he said, imagining the pair of them uninterrupted on a tropical island. Eddie all sun-kissed and sweaty and- yep. Yeah, that’s it. Where do I sign, he thought. “What do you think?”

“I think we’re gonna need to get you fed before it gets a little more Lord of the Flies than Fantasy Island down here,” he said, noting the telltale grumbling coming from Richie’s side of the bed. 

Tugging Richie out of bed, Eddie headed for the stairs, beckoning him onward. “Why am I being betrayed by my own stomach,” he asked idly.

“Because I'm always, always right,” he said, turning around from the second step and meeting Richie at his level for a kiss. 

Still, he heard movement from above them and they both froze. Maggie seemed to have walked to the front of the house and Richie took a step back. “I'm just…” he looked up and shook his head. “I'm not ready yet.”

Calling down the hallway, voice reverberating off the front window- she must have seen Richie’s car and realized something was up- Maggie yelled “Boys? Are you home?” She shouted toward the kitchen. “Richie? Eddie?”

“I'll go,” Eddie whispered.

Richie shook his head, grabbing at Eddie’s hand. “No, it's-”

“It's fine. Let me do this one,” he answered gently, smoothing down Richie’s hair and kissing his forehead. Idly, he thought, he liked being taller. It would be nice if the universe would offer him a good solid growth spurt and he’d suddenly be taller than Richie and Richie would have to live with being the little one. He reached the door and opened it. “Hi, mom,” he said, peeking his head around the corner and startling Maggie.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she said, smiling and crossing her arms. “I thought you and Richie were going with your parents or did I have that wrong?”

Eddie glanced down at the floor between them and stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him. “Um-” was all the answer he could get out before Maggie zeroed in on his expression.

She crumbled, watching the boy’s troubled expression. “Things didn't get ugly again did they?” He nodded and looked back at the floor. She pursed her lips, adjusting her glasses. “Ooh, I have half a mind to go over there right now and tell your mother just what-”

“That's not a terrible idea, actually,” Eddie said, looking back at the door, his hands itching for Richie’s. “But you should wait and take Mr. Tozier with you. I think maybe his input might be desired, especially as far as my dad is concerned.” 

That was a strange suggestion, she thought. “Why?” she asked, then looking at the way he was so deliberately avoiding his gaze. “Oh. Oh, no.”

He nodded, then looked back toward the door, frustrated that he couldn’t have a quick conversation without feeling lightheaded, but altogether pleased with himself for having the conversation at all. “Yeah. So, um, I hope you don't mind, but right this second, neither one of us really feel like talking.”

Maggie, however, was so focused on the door, knowing that Richie was likely pressed up against the other side of it, eavesdropping. “Is he okay?” she asked, willing Richie to open it, to talk to her. 

“He's fine,” Eddie lied, leaning against the hollow white wood for support. “He just needs time, I think. There’s a lot for both of us to digest and it’s not-” he sighed, barely able to hear himself think over the buzzing in his ears. “I know that we have to talk to you guys soon and we will, but for now, we just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Did he get sick? I know how stressful things-”

With a soft smile, Eddie nodded. “A couple of times, but I took care of him.” She nodded and stepped aside, granting him more room to open the door, but he turned back, realizing that maybe that’s what she needed to hear. “I’ll always take care of Richie.” 

Tears pricked as the corner of her eye as she watched him go. “Just, Eddie?” he turned back to her, already feeling a little better as soon as he’d gotten to the first step. She seemed to struggle for words, then landed on. “Tell him I'm sorry.”

“I will,” he promised.    


Turning around and closing the door, finding himself face to face with Richie. “Thank you,” he whispered, pressing up to kiss him.

Eddie smoothed the hair out of his eyes and looked down at him fondly. “For what?” 

Gesturing vaguely in the direction of the hallway, Richie simply muttered. “That. All of that.” He leaned up and kissed him. “For taking care of me,” he said softly.

“Oh, yeah, that,” Eddie smiled, nodding. “You owe me big time for that,” he added, turning him around and giving him a gentle prod toward the basement. “Such a large inconvenience. Woe is me, however will I go on-” he joked. As he wrapped his arms around Richie’s middle, walking behind him, he pressed another gentle kiss to the space between his shoulder blades. “Having a mildly uncomfortable conversation with my mother-in-law who is, quite possibly, the only one of the four of our parents I'm not currently even a little mad at, to protect my husband from having an even more uncomfortable one? I’m a hero.” He shoved Richie down onto the bed and popped on the TV, crawling in front of him and nestling their bodies tightly together.

Amused by the whole show, which seemed to be a page out of his own book, Richie snickered. “Asshole,” he said, wrapping Eddie up in his arms.

Eddie, his husband. Eddie, his husband who had just been the first one to say it and it felt so normal since his brain had been supplying it without his awareness for so long now that Richie almost missed it. He almost missed the first time that Eddie had called him his husband to his face. He’d only heard him say it once, that had been so entrenched in their fight at lunch that he hadn’t really had time to internalize it. Hell, he’d only said it out loud to Eddie once, and that was more just to try it out. 

Eddie had referred to him as his husband out loud. That meant that it was fair game. If Eddie considered him his husband, that was it. That was all the encouragement he needed to go full speed ahead into being as head over heels in love with Eddie as he wanted. And he wanted it all. 

“What are we doing?” Richie asked a while later when the old black and white horror movie they’d popped on was over and Eddie had reached across him for the phone.

“Dinner,” he said, punching in the number for their favorite pizza place in town. 

Furrowing his brows, Richie seemed to miss the point. “Why?” The food issue had been dropped. He was starving, sure, but he’d heard his dad come in and the near-immediate way they’d left. They could go up and make food if they wanted. 

“Because your stomach has been growling for an hour,” Eddie shrugged. “I love you and I know you. You're gonna start losing brain function if you don't get fed,” he said tousling his hair and kissing him.

“Don't want food,” Richie growled, kissing down Eddie’s neck.

“Not now, Richie,” Eddie said, breath hitching as he sucked hard on his collarbone. That was going to leave a mark that was going to be more than difficult to explain, he thought. “Just wait until I’m-” he said as Richie smoothed his palm over his crotch steadily. Even through his jeans, he couldn’t help but rise to the occasion, “Off the phone,” he hissed, trying to ignore the way he was stirring at the slightest touch. 

Richie slid off the bed to his knees and smiled up at him, devilishly adding, “Not hungry for food.” He unbuttoned Eddie’s pants and slid them to the floor, then did the same with his underwear, leaving him stripped from the waist down.

Struggling to imagine what could possibly be taking so long, Eddie repeated “Come on, _pickuppickuppickup_.” 

Making the most of the time, realizing they had the house to themselves, Richie was quick to realize that that meant that he could do his best to get Eddie to make whatever noises he could. He braced himself on Eddie’s thighs and started working slowly, steadily on making Eddie lose control. In his own incorrigible way, it was a fun game.

The pizza place picked up and Eddie cleared his throat. “Hi. For delivery?” He watched, entranced as Richie bobbed up and down on him. “6498 Beechum. Tozier, yep. Eddie. Can you ask the driver to head to the cellar doors. We’re in the basement,” he said. He tried to ignore the more deliberate motions Richie was making, but it was getting harder to focus. “Can we get one large meat lovers, extra sausage, one large veggie, no eggplant, and a two liter Coke.” As the person on the other end ran back over the bill, he was grateful to not have to make any sense. He hummed through a particularly strong wave and dug his fingers into Richie’s hair, a breathy, “Yeah,” that could have been directed at the person taking the order or caused by Richie. Even he wasn’t sure. He could feel his face growing hot and if Richie didn’t stop doing that very soon, he was quite possibly going to lose his mind. “$26.69?” because, of course, it was. He could even feel Richie laughing and the vibration was an experience. “45 minutes to an hour?” He asked as Richie slowly moved one hand up his leg and arched it over his shoulder, adding a new angle as his hips bucked involuntarily. “Ohhhhkay. Thanks, bye,” he hung up the phone quickly and tossed it aside leaving his hand there heavily. “Fuck, Richie,” he hissed, sliding further down toward the edge of the bed.

“It's not my fault you called a 900 number for pizza, Eds. Back door,” he said innocently, batting his eyes up at his husband and adding his hand into the mix. “Meat lover?” he asked, returning to his prior ministrations before stopping to add, “Extra sausage, eggplant,” he stopped everything and deadpanned- “69?” He clucked his tongue before he returned his mouth to Eddie gently, earning a few of those sounds he’d been looking for, making him shiver once with an unannounced change of pace. “And, on top of that, you said your name was Eddie Tozier.” He slid one hand up under Eddie’s shirt and then back down. “You called me your husband earlier and you know I couldn’t let that pass. What was I supposed to do?” he asked, pointedly. “Were you not trying to get head from your husband?” he teased. "I can take a hint, babe. You don't need to bash me over the fucking skull with it," he said, laughing at the helpless way Eddie flinched every time he withdrew his mouth. "Just say 'Richie, I would very much like you to blow me now, please' and I will obey."

Eddie scoffed, letting his hands drift down to Richie’s shoulders. “Get off your knees, would you? We have 45 minutes to kill and your legs will be killing you if you're down there the whole time,” he admonished. Richie raised his eyebrows and folded his arms expectantly. "Richie," he sighed, reaching for him. "Richie, please go back to the very, very good things you were doing with your mouth and I will tel you over and over again how wonderful and smart and funny you are." That wasn't exactly what Richie had prompted, he knew, but it was going to have to suffice. Nevertheless, as Richie climbed into bed, he couldn’t take his eyes off of Eddie, with the lights on and hot and bothered and all his. “Enjoying the view?” Eddie said, propping himself up on his elbows.

“Oh yeah, Dirty Pooh Bear really does it for me,” he said, moving to slide Eddie’s t-shirt over his head.

Eyebrows furrowed, Eddie tried to figure out what that was supposed to mean. “Dirty-” suddenly, the image of the cartoon character flew into his mind, practically drop-kicking him in the imagination. “Oh, shut up, Richie. That's not even funny,” he said, shoving down a laugh that seemed to shoot straight to Richie’s ego. He loved when Eddie laughed at his jokes, even if they were the lazy ones. “You're not-” 

Eddie didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence as Richie refocused all of his energy on Eddie. He moved directly at his service and Eddie started to lose control. “You’re- That's- Oh, God,” he stammered, whines growing into moans. “Richie, please don't stop. If you don’t want me to- In-”

Backing off a little, Richie said, “Wherever you need to, babe,” then returned to working Eddie through it. “That's it,” he said, wiping his mouth with his thumb, slowly staying with him through the end. He dropped down into the bed beside his husband, breathless and stunned at how responsive Eddie was, even once he’d finished. 

They lay there in the quiet. Eddie, it seemed, was feeling particularly affectionate. He curled up on his side, his hand tucked up under Richie’s shirt. Still, Richie knew better. Something was eating at his husband. “Say it. Whatever you're thinking.”

Arching one eyebrow, Eddie scrutinized him. “Promise you won't make fun?”

“No,” Richie scoffed.

Reflexively, Eddie shook his head. “Then, no.”

They turned on the TV just in time to encounter another crisis from Blossom as Eddie stepped into a pair of Richie’s sweats that hung way low on his hips and brought his T-Shirt back on. Once the Pizza got there, they were well into a shitty cop movie sequel. Richie laughed out a mouthful of crumbs as the young-gun partner described themselves with “I’m chaos and he’s mayhem.” He’d have to remember that one. 

The front door slammed and he heard the click of his mother’s heels and his father’s voice, low and intent. “What do you think they're talking about?” Eddie asked. They seemed to have stopped by the cellar door which caused both undue tensions.

“Us, no doubt,” Richie groaned, looking up at the ceiling as though he could see them. It was frustrating, he thought, but it was also none of his business. They’d made that much clear. 

Eddie shrugged, then leaned his head on Richie’s chest. “Yeah, probably,” he agreed. In truth, it was more than a probability. He could hear snatches of the conversation and it seemed like they were still riled up. He wished he could know what his parents had said. 

“I just don't get why they handled it like some huge dirty secret,” Richie said, hanging his head. He tried to shake off a tear, but it fell anyway. 

The worst part about it was that he’d spent years- literal years- terrified of the person he knew he was. His parents had never mentioned that there was any other path but straight. The town seemed to pride itself on the Patrick Hockstetter brand of thinking. He knew, now, that being bonded offered at least some form of legitimacy in the eyes of a lot of the adults in town. Even if they couldn’t understand the gay part, they understood the feeling. 

The difference being, he’d known, deep down, that he’d felt that way about Eddie since they were ten. Shortly after his birthday, when they’d gone to the movies, Bill had had a fight with Stan and stolen Eddie away for the whole recess. It had been fine. He liked spending time with Stan. They’d talked and made fun of Bill and Eddie a little from the other side of the playground. Bill and Stan had made up by the end of the day, apparently, Eddie had cajoled Bill into realizing he was right and Richie had bugged Stan just enough to make him receptive to the idea of being friends again, so they decided that they were going to get ice cream for each other as an I’m sorry, leaving just Richie and Eddie to get home together. 

Eddie had ridden on the pedals of Richie’s bike with his arms around him. “Ya know, Bill’s awesome and all, but I can’t imagine being stuck with only him for recess. He’s too serious,” he groaned, digging his chin into Richie’s back. “I mean, all he did was whine about Stan. He didn’t even want to play or nothin’.”

“Sounds tough, Spaghetti-man,” Richie yelled into the wind. “Stan and I had a sword fight and made fun of Bill.”

Eddie leaned up. “So, Stan was the same way, then.”

“Yeap,” he answered, popping the p sound and turning on to the big street that led into their neighborhood.  _ I missed you,  _ he didn’t say.

“So next time they have a fight, we leave them to fight to the death because I only wanna spend recess with my best friend,” he said. Eddie looked up at Richie and waited for any sort of a response. “That would be you, butthead,” he said, flicking the back of his head.

The bike ground to a halt, nearly dumping both boys. Eddie stepped down off the back pegs and folded his arms, preparing to tear into Richie, when he was interrupted by a “You really mean that?” 

Richie’s heart had threatened to explode that day and roughly a billion times in the years since. Eddie called him his best friend and that he only wanted to spend time with him and that was so  _ cool _ . He picked Eddie up in a big hug and swung him around, his bike clattering to the ground behind him. He felt like he had just won the lottery. Not that he’d ever had reason to doubt it, exactly, but it just confirmed for Richie that he was indeed the most awesomest person he’d ever met, except maybe Eddie but he didn’t count because he was special.

“Mean what?” Eddie asked like he hadn’t said anything that would have thrown Richie for a loop- Absolutely nothing that Richie wouldn’t have known.

“That I’m your best friend, jerkface!” 

He’d heard a couple of kids talking about crushes and stuff the last couple of months. How their tummies would get fluttery and they’d get this weird feeling that they just wanted to look at a person all the time. People had even teased Bill about having a crush on Beverly Marsh after the play and he’d fought them and fought them, but Richie knew when Bill was lying. He always blushed into his ears and his stutter got worse. When he’d asked him about it later, he’d said, “I don’t know. I like her and she’s funny and she’s pretty and we had fun together and her lips were soft.”

Richie didn’t know much, but he looked at Eddie all the time, he was definitely pretty and funny and smart and he definitely liked him and they definitely had fun together. Sometimes, like just then, when he’d had his arms around him on his bike, he’d been pretty sure that an army of butterflies had been unleashed inside of him and, yeah, he didn’t know what his lips felt like, but he thought that they looked soft and pink and his eyelashes were pretty and long… Yeah. Yeah, that sounded like a crush to him. At the time, he hadn’t even realized it wasn’t normal. He had just accepted it. 

“Well, aren’t I yours?” Eddie had asked incredulously, a weird, almost hurt look in his eyes.

Stumbling over his words and looking down at the hole forming in the toe of his right sneaker, he said, “Well, yeah, but, I thought-”   


Reaching out, Eddie gave Richie a little push. “Then, why wouldn’t you be mine?” When he was unable to come up with even a halfway decent answer for that, Richie just beamed, his tongue peeking through the space where his bottom canine tooth had fallen out. Eddie had been unable to help himself but smile back. “Come on, I should get home.”

Before they were out of grade school, though, Richie still hadn’t shaken that crush. Middle school boys had become a lot more preoccupied with words that they could weaponize against kids that were different. The first time he’d seen it was on a bathroom stall when he’d been in 6th grade- a sloppy label above two holes in the wall that said: “Peep Here Fags.” Even before he knew what it meant, something in it twisted his insides. He hated the word. Once he had discerned what it meant, he hated that he’d known that it was meant for him.

Through the years, the names for it multiplied. The jabs became pointed. The summer after Bill’s little brother died, they’d heard it a lot. The older boys, Bowers and his group of shitheads, had seemed to zero in on Richie. 

When he asked his father about it, Went had merely shrugged. “Boys that age are assholes, Richie. It’s nothing personal,” he said. Most boys that age didn’t really know what it meant. Nevermind that he was pretty sure that the Hockstetter kid might actually have been like 27, not 14 as the school would have the other parents believe. 

What Went didn’t realize, then, was that it was immensely personal. It was so tremendously personal for Richie that he found himself avoiding the places he’d once loved that whole summer because that fucking Bowers kid hung around there, or because the Paul Bunyan statue and its too big fucking all-knowing eyes were staring at Richie like it knew. Like it knew his dirty little secret. So, he panicked and he shoved it down and he hid and he denied, and most of all, he yearned. 

But even Richie couldn’t hold that secret forever. 

So there he sat on a new queen bed in what was, essentially, a finished studio apartment in his parents' basement at 17 with his Husband, whom he had been pining for since grade school. Go figure. He had spent most of his teenage years hating himself, terrified of what he was going to do if people started to find out about all of the dirty, awful things he kept inside, only to find that it was Not A Big Deal. He’d even worked up enough emotional friction that somehow they’d pulled a bond out of thin air and- nothing.

But amidst all of that stress and worry, the one person who had some sort of idea, some sort of guidance to offer, his own fucking father, didn’t think to say “Oh, and by the way, Richie, it might be important for you to know, someday, that I am bonded to someone that’s not your mother and, oh yeah, he’s your best friend’s dad and here’s the deal-”. No, he hadn’t even bothered to say, “Hey, kiddo. I see you’re doodling hearts around Eddie’s picture in your yearbook. Care to discuss?” Not even a subtle nod at Charles Nelson Reilly on one of those Match Game reruns and a “He’s an okay dude. Funny, successful and gay as a picnic basket.” Nothing to dissuade the fears he knew his son had. 

On more than one occasion, he’d stumbled upon Richie in the midst of a clearly fraught emotional battle. He’d asked about it and Richie had openly spouted what had been said. He’d tell him all the horrible names he’d been called. How they’d taken his backpack and shoved it into the dumpster. Went had been furious, of course, every time. He’d try to help. He’d encourage Richie to say “Fuck ‘em” and continue to be himself. He’d give him some tips for protecting himself that his mother would lose her shit if she ever heard. But he’d never ask.

He’d never ask but he knew. He knew that it was a possibility, Richie thought. And if that was the case, why couldn’t he have made some indication that it wasn’t going to be that bad.

Eddie scooted down and curled himself against Richie’s side. “You heard my mom before. Nobody seems happy with the outcome.”

“I don’t know,” Richie said, pressing his cheek into the top of Eddie’s hair. “I’m pretty sure my parents like you more than they like me.” 

A snort of a laugh sounded from Eddie’s throat. “ _ That’s _ not true,” he said. It wasn’t even a question. Richie’s parents loved him more than he’d ever seen any parent love their kid. But, for the time being- and only for the time being, he’d let him have this one. If he wanted to mope right then, they’d mope. He leaned up, nuzzling into the underside of Richie’s jaw, adding, “Even if it were, I think I love you enough to make up for it.”

Richie smiled, tilting his face up just a bit. “Yeah, but that’s not even accounting for the stupid amount that I love you.” He lowered his mouth to Eddie’s and kissed him, hoping that, maybe, they’d just drift off and not have to listen to the obstructed discussion upstairs anymore. Instead, Richie found himself staring at the TV until Saturday Night Live came on. Knowing that the pretty blonde girl from ...Married With Children was hosting, he’d left it on, hoping for anything to take his mind off of everything else. As he drifted off, to the soft jazz sounds of the goodnights, he had a very strange but pleasant dream of himself and Eddie packing it all in and moving through the country in a van.  _ Weird. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this cleared up some more about bonds in the abstract. The next episode is a lot if not all parents, so stay tuned there. I'm sorry in advance. <3


End file.
